Why are small businesses easier to infiltrate? They tend to have fewer safeguards in place than larger enterprises. Small-business owners erroneously believe that because they have fewer clients and therefore less data to compromise, they offer little enticement for cyber thieves. On the contrary, because cyber criminals can penetrate small businesses’ systems more easily, they will hit several small businesses in the same amount of time that it would take them to get past all the security measures of a large enterprise.

Email is still the most common form of communication used in business. Hackers know this and will use email to infiltrate a company’s system. They can do this via tainted attachments or hyperlinks. Other, bolder criminals will call or visit a business pretending to be network administrators or representatives from a security firm. Teach your employees how to recognize when someone is on a phishing expedition. One mistake could ruin your business and your reputation.

Data security is paramount to the success of your business. You are responsible for protecting your clients’ information. If their credit card information gets stolen because a hacker infiltrated your system, even if their credit card companies don’t make them pay for the fraudulent purchases, they will still blame you. Trust is one of the most valuable things you can get from your clients. Once that’s lost, it’s almost impossible to get back. In fact, some clients will never put their trust in you again. And they certainly won’t be referring any of their friends or colleagues to you. So, not only have you lost current business but also future business.

Besides making sure you install firewalls and update security software programs regularly, establish best practices for you and your employees to follow. Use complicated passwords that use numbers, symbols and capital letters. This makes them tougher to guess. Complicated passwords are also tougher to remember, so keep them written down in a small notebook that it’s store away from the computer. Change login passwords about once a month. Also, teach your employees how to recognize suspicious emails. To make it easier for people to remember to follow these best practices, you could post them in the break room and above copiers and fax machines. When it comes to recognizing suspicious callers or visitors, you could run regular drills. You could make them fun by offering a prize to the person who “catches” the most suspicious visitors. Or you could divide your employees into teams, depending on how many you have. Gift cards or branded merchandise could be offered as prizes.

You really can’t take too many precautions when it comes to protecting your company data. Your clients rely on you to keep them protected from cyber criminals, too, so anything you do to protect your business also protects your clients.

Looking for a trusted IT security firm to help you protect your business information and data?  Call us today.

It’s not always easy to convey exactly what you’re trying to say to someone in an email message, and you just don’t have time for a video conference. One option is to use a screenshot. Outlook allows you to do this without going through the whole process of capturing the screenshot, saving it and then attaching it. The whole thing can be done while you’re composing your message. Simply click on the “Insert” tab, then click on “Screenshot.” Outlook will allow you to browse all the windows you have open so you can select the one you need. Once you’ve made your selection, it’s pasted into your message and you can either insert another or continue writing.

If you’re like me, you never empty either the trash or the spam folders in your email. With something like Gmail, this might not matter so much, but with Outlook, it could. All those stored messages take up space on your company’s server. Get rid of them. Outlook has a way for your email trash bin to be deleted automatically. Just as you can set your browser history to be deleted every time you log off the Internet, so can you set your email trash bin to be emptied every time you close out of Outlook. Simply click on “File,” then “Options,” then “Advanced.” Under the “Advanced” tab, you’ll want to find the “Start” and “Exit” options. When you do, select “Empty Deleted Items.” This ensures that every time you exit Outlook, your trash bin gets emptied. Be careful with this option, though. If you’ve ever deleted something mistakenly, you might want to just remind yourself to empty your email trash bin once a week. Going back to a client or colleague to ask him to resend an email you accidentally deleted can be embarrassing.

The last helpful tip for using Outlook pertains to back and forth email messages. Have you ever tried to schedule an appointment and found yourself sorting through dozens of email messages trying to find the one with the information you needed? Outlook has the answer to that problem, too. In the “Conversation View,” you can have all of your emails listed in an orderly fashion, complete with quoted text from previous emails. This can be distracting and even cause confusion. If you want to get rid of it, simply right click on the “Clean Up Conversation” button and the quoted text is deleted and you’re left with only the most relevant information.

Some people prefer to use Gmail or Hotmail or Ymail even for business correspondence. But if Outlook is your email account of choice, then the above tips could come in handy someday.

Need help with Microsoft Outlook?  Give us a call today, we can help you with Microsoft Outlook because we use it everyday.

VMWare offers VMWare Fusion Pro 4 software for those business and home Mac users who want to virtualize Windows 7 on their Macs. You can try it out for 30 days. If you like it, you can buy the license for approximately $200.

Oracle makes VirtualBox for x86 or AMD64/Intel 64 hardware. This free open source software is good for both home and business use. One caveat:  Your machine may be inadequate to handle Oracle’s power.

For 14 days, you can try Parallels Desktop 7. This software allows users to run multiple operating systems on one machine simultaneously and switch back and forth between them. If you like it, you can buy the license for roughly $80.

Another option is to use Apple’s Boot Camp. This may be the best option, especially for those on a budget. Boot Camp is included with all Apple computers, so there’s nothing extra to pay. Once you’ve configured Boot Camp in your computer, you can boot up your Mac from your Windows setup CD and then install Windows 7 on the new partition you’ve created.

Switching from a PC to a Mac doesn’t have to mean giving up using Windows 7. Of course, your budget, the type of computer you have and your needs will factor largely in your decision to either use one of the aforementioned softwares or simply take the time to configure Boot Camp.

Well, for individuals who plan to recycle or re-use their hard drives, one option would be to download free hard drive erasing software, such as Freeraser, KillDisk or SDelete. If you’re leery of downloading freeware from the Internet – as you should be – then you can buy software like WipeDrive for as little as $20. But that’s for individuals or small-businesses with fewer than 10 employees. But what if your small business has 20, 30 or 50 employees?  Is erasing computer hard drives really the best use of your IT team’s time? Probably not.

Fortunately, it’s not necessary for small-business leaders to spend time wiping clean every hard drive on every desktop or laptop computer that they plan to recycle or discard. Just as you can shred paper documents before throwing them in a recycle bin or dumpster, you can also shred or, more accurately, have shredded, any hard drive that you no longer plan to use for your business.

If you’re going to do that, then you probably should check, double check and triple check to make sure that all relevant or mission-critical information has been transferred and stored elsewhere. The same thing applies to small-business leaders who decide to completely erase their computers’ hard drives. Once that data is gone, it’s gone forever.

Hard drive shredding must be catching on because there are a few companies already offering these services. Data Killers, for example, offers hard drive shredding, hard drive erasing and degaussing (another way to wipe clean a hard drive that renders the hard drive unusable) services, on site and off site, for corporations and government agencies. Federal Document Shredding also provides on-site shredding for small and large businesses, government agencies and health care facilities. The company is HIPAA compliant and even offers x-ray destruction services. PC Recycler, Inc. offers its services not only to corporations and government agencies but also to individuals in the Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. areas. For only $10, an individual could bring the hard drive from his PC to one of PC Recycler’s “shredding events” and watch as the hard drive is torn into tiny bits. As with Data Killers, PC Recycler offers on-site and off-site shredding services to businesses.

It’s more than a little daunting to think about where your last computer went and who’s using it, especially if all you did was reformat your hard drive before donating your computer to Goodwill or selling it to a pawn shop. Individuals and small-business owners who want to ensure the data on their hard drives are forever inaccessible, could use software like WipeDisk or Freeraser to wipe their hard drives themselves if they don’t want to hire a shredding service. But for leaders in larger businesses, hiring a service like Data Killers or PC Recycler to come in and do the wiping or shredding for them really is money well spent.

According to Microsoft, despite being server only, clients will be able to access ReFS stored data. The new system has an NTFS base with new architecture and engineering that will accommodate 21^st century “storage technologies and scenarios.”

The NTFS semantics and features that ReFS won’t support are named streams, object IDs, short names, compression, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions, sparse, hard-links, extended attributes and quotas.

Although ReFS and Storage Spaces can run independently of each other, Microsoft expects a lot of customers to use them in conjunction with each other. When customers use ReFS in conjunction with mirrored Storage Spaces, corruptions will be fixed automatically and transparently. Microsoft has also devised a way to deal with “bit rot,” which happens when parts of the disk develop corruptions over time that tend to go undetected because those parts aren’t often read.

“In order to deal with bit rot, we have added a system task that periodically scrubs all metadata and Integrity Stream data on an ReFS volume residing on a mirrored Storage Space,” said Surendra Verma, a Microsoft development manager on the storage and file system team. “Scrubbing involves reading all the redundant copies and validating their correctness using the ReFS checksums. If checksums mismatch, bad copies are fixed using good ones.”

Microsoft has several goals it hopes to achieve with ReFS such as verify and auto-correct data, optimize for extreme scale and never take the file system offline.

It may be more than a year before ReFS is ready to be used by the average consumer. In the meantime, anyone who is interested in learning more about it can do so on Microsoft’s MSDN blog.

This is a fairly long read, however we urge you to chip away at it when you can. Every business owner should all be keenly aware of the security threat landscape. Ultimately it will help us protect our systems (both in the office and at home) more effectively.

As always, please contact your trusted IT security team with any questions or concerns.

Download the report - Sophos Security Threat Report 2012

Although things like fires and natural disasters are rare occurrences, loss and theft are more common. Why tempt fate? Regardless of your business’ size, the loss of essential data can be devastating. If you and your employees store information on smart devices like iPhones or BlackBerrys, then the potential for damage is increased. The information stored in those devices must be backed up, too.

In 2008, Rubicon Consulting, Inc. conducted a survey, financed by Symantec, that revealed that half of all small and medium-sized businesses had lost important company data. Almost one-third of that 50% had lost sales or customers because they’d lost important data. In four years, not much has changed.

A study by the Diffusion Group in 2012 revealed that 40% of the nearly 1,000 small- and medium-sized-business owners it interviewed still don’t backup data, and 60% of that data is stored on devices like laptops and desktops, which also aren’t backed up. With all the horror stories that have been reported in the news in recent years, it’s surprising that more small- and medium-sized-business owners aren’t backing up their data. Although most of the horror stories involve data lost because a computer or smart device was lost or stolen, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Irene were real events that wiped out whole communities. The odds having your company destroyed by a hurricane might be in your favor, but human error can happen anywhere at any time.

The Harris Interactive survey also revealed that of those businesses that do backup their data, between 40% and 50% of the backed up data isn’t fully recoverable because improper setup, media failure or lack of regular testing have resulted in faulty media or failures.

Large enterprises could probably withstand the lost revenues, lost customers and tarnished reputations that the loss or theft of important data could cause. But some small and medium-sized businesses might not be so fortunate. It’s as important to ensure that your company’s data is properly backed up and recoverable as it is to make sure that your car is properly maintained. While you won’t die if your lost business data isn’t properly backed up, your business might.

It’s hard to remember to back up data, especially for individuals who lead active lives and business owners who have thriving businesses. The consequences of neglecting to backup important data on a daily basis could be far more damaging to a business owner than the average individual.

Are you need of a trusted data backup solution for your business?  Look no further that our IT support firm.  We are your trusted data protection, backup and disaster recovery firm. Call us today.

Christina Goggie, on behalf of GFI Software LTD, shared nine benefits of email monitoring. Below are five that stood out the most:

Where did all our disk space go? Employees may be unaware of the affect their email practices have on your business. With email monitoring, you can identify whose email habits are gobbling up all of your company’s server space and let him know what your company’s policies are when it comes to sharing files via email.

Customer satisfaction is a must. Without customers, your business can’t exist. Use email monitoring to keep track of SLAs handled by your help desk or customer service team. If there are long delays between when emails are received and your help desk or customer service team responds, email monitoring can help you find out why. Once you identify the problem, you can start doing whatever needs to be done to solve it as quickly and efficiently as possible.

It’s personal. Don’t let your employees’ personal use of company email get out of hand. Occasional personal emails are all right, unless your company has a policy that strictly forbids it, but you’ll have to rein in those who are taking advantage. One way to curb the personal use of company email is by reminding employees that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy when they use their company email accounts. If they don’t want ultra-personal emails to be read by you or someone on your IT team, they should refrain from using the company email account to send them.

Ferret out the pack rats. Some people save every email they receive. Email monitoring will help you identify them so you can give them some guidance about which emails are must saves and which ones can be deleted.

Be professional. You’re running a business. Customers, prospects and colleagues expect to receive emails that make it apparent that they are corresponding with a professional organization. You’re not micro-managing when you take the time to monitor your employees’ emails and take the time to address issues. Even if your employees send emails with their smart phones, make it clear that using text message shorthand is not acceptable, nor is poor language. Some people are better communicators than others. Take the time to let employees know the appropriate way to correspond via email. It could ultimately spare you the embarrassment and bottom-line impact of lost customers, vendors or partners.

Email is a business’ most important form of communication. It’s worth the time and expense needed to monitor what your employees are doing and quickly address issues that threaten productivity, profitability or effectiveness.

Need assistance with managing your email and other electronic communications?  Give us a call today, we are here to serve you and your IT needs.

The first step is probably the most obvious. Password protect all laptops, tablet PCs and smart devices. And don’t use easy to guess passwords. Complicate them by using capital and lower case letters, symbols and numbers. Of course, the more complex the password, the more likely you are to forget it. Keep your passwords written down and locked away in a secure place, preferably away from your desk.

Another way to keep sensitive files safe is by encrypting them or password protecting them. But keep in mind that this works best if the password protecting your documents is different from the one you use to launch Windows on your computer. You could even create a different password for each document or file folder.

Laptops with biometric security add an extra layer of protection. That doesn’t mean you should stop using passwords. Biometrics serve as supplements to passwords and should never be used as replacements for them.

The best way to keep anyone from being able to access important information is by not storing anything of vital importance on a portable device, especially a smart phone. It’s better to store files on a thumb drive. As an extra precaution, keep the thumb drive in your pocket or around your neck, as many are sold with lanyards. That way, if a laptop, tablet or smart device is lost or stolen, the files are still secure.

Business travel is a must for some people, so it’s good to know that there are security devices that can help you keep track of your laptop in busy airport terminals, coffee shops or wherever you may be. One is a laptop cable. Laptop cables come in many varieties and can be purchased for as little as $24 in places like Office Depot. With a laptop cable, you can secure your computer to a desk or table or bathroom sink. You can also buy a laptop security alarm that emits a loud noise when the laptop is moved or the alarm is tampered with.

Don’t rest on your laurels. New software and devices are being updated and created all the time. Update software programs and upgrade or replace security devices like locks, alarms, etc., so that you always have the latest protection.

Finally, educate your employees. Have a set of security guidelines. Post them in the break room, above the fax machine, the water cooler, etc. In addition, go over security the guidelines with your employees at least once a week. Make it fun. Have some sort of contest with a gift card to a local restaurant or coffee shop as the prize. Quiz your employees on the security procedures you’ve established. Whoever answers the most questions correctly wins the gift card. Using it as a way to unwind on Friday afternoon or get going on Monday morning could make it something your employees look forward to with anticipation rather than dread.

No matter how many precautions you take to protect your company’s vital information, if you don’t take steps to reduce incidences of human error, then it’s all for naught.

In 2006, hackers got their hands on the source codes for Symantec’s Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security, Norton Utilities, Norton GoBack and pcAnywhere, Symantec spokesman Chris Paden told Reuters, as the company recanted its past denial and admitted that the hackers infiltrated its network. The hackers released the source code to a 2006 version of Norton Utilities a week before they announced their plans. Their reasons for releasing the codes so many years after the initial theft are as yet unknown.

Source code theft is a serious matter because the source code contains detailed instructions and notes that explain the design of the software. According to those who know a thing or two about software programming, despite the age of the codes, certain aspects of each software program could be vulnerable to attack unless Symantec’s latest versions are completely new. It’s like a writer who goes back every year and re-writes an article to fit the needs of a new publication. Certain aspects of the article remain unchanged while others have been altered or updated. The source codes of Symantec’s updated software have been rewritten in much the same way. So, although the risk to people who have the latest version of the software is infinitesimal, it does exist.

Users of Symantec’s pcAnywhere, which allows people to easily connect to computers or servers from remote locations, are the most at risk. According to Paden, the company is letting those customers know what happened and how to protect themselves.

Source codes are usually as heavily guarded as Fort Knox or the recipe for Coke. Only certain people have full access to them, thereby increasing the odds against internal corporate espionage at the hands of a disgruntled or greedy employee. Let’s face it, not every competitor can be counted on to be as honest as Pepsi. The people who stole Symantec’s source codes seem to have a different agenda from selling the codes to McAfee or Webroot or any of Symantec’s other competitors.

The hackers have a spokesman of their own named “Yama Tough,” and on Jan. 16, 2012, Yama Tough went on Twitter and promised to “release more code to the public … and pour mayhem,” according to Greg Keizer in his article for Computerworld.

The Internet is fraught with dangers, so everyone should have some sort of protection on his computer and mobile devices. But who protects the protectors? Nobody is safe from hackers, not even companies like Symantec. The good news is that the company did come forward to alert its most at-risk customers about the source code theft and told them how they can protect themselves from Yama Tough and his cohorts.

You want the time you spend on the Internet to be enjoyable and worry free, but there are no guarantees. Anyone can get hacked at any time. You can reduce your chances of becoming a victim of cybercrime by taking a few precautions. Even if your computer only has the most basic protection, it’s better than having none at all.

Believe it or not, a lot of people don’t have anti-virus or firewall protection on their computers. If your computer comes with anti-virus and firewall protection, use it. It’s also a good idea to install additional protection from trusted companies like McAfee, Trend Micro or Kaspersky. Research each carefully, and choose the one that works best for you. Some anti-virus software programs are incompatible, so if you’re going to have more than one, make sure that you have two programs that will work together on your computer, such as McAfee and Kaspersky. Once you have your anti-virus software installed, schedule it to do a complete scan of your computer at least once a week. Make sure you schedule regular, automatic updates of your software. This will ensure that you always have the latest version running on your computer.

You want to have a good firewall system, one that will automatically block or alert you to suspicious websites. You can help yourself during Google searches by previewing sites before clicking on the links to them. If a website looks suspicious, don’t visit it. Scan any materials that you plan to download from the Internet. And be careful what friends and family members – particularly your children — do when they’re using your computer, too.

One way people really hurt themselves when they’re online is with their choices of passwords. Everybody wants you to have a login ID and password these days, and it can be hard to remember them all. Still, you should try to come up with passwords for your accounts that are more complicated than your birth date or “password.” You definitely want to have complex passwords for any e-commerce sites that you use. You can keep track of all your different login IDs and passwords in a small notebook. Put the notebook someplace safe … away from your computer.

It’s a shame that we can’t just sit down in front of our computers and log on to the Internet without having to worry about the big bad cyber wolf waiting to pounce. We do have to worry; however, we can worry less and enjoy our time online more by taking a few simple steps to protect our computers from malicious websites and protect our personal information from computer hackers.

Is the social media giant really giving away free iPads and iPhones to random followers and users?

We don’t think that Apple has to worry about giving away their hottest products.  After all, they are selling like crazy across the world.  Does Apple really need to team up with Facebook to help promote their stuff?

If you are one of many who receive an email recently from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, don’t count yourself lucky.  There is a new scam going around the Internet today claiming that Facebook is giving away Apple products to some lucky recipients.

Here is an example of the email that arrived in our office today.

This is a hoax email and a trick to get you to sign up, claiming that you can win the new iPhone 4S or iPad 2.

As your trusted IT professionals,we would like to remind you that offers that come via email like this are often tricks.  This tricks are used by spammers and sometimes legitimate businesses to lure folks in.  We recommend that you always delete these messages and never act on them.  Don’t even consider forwarding them on to your friends either.  Always be on the look out and have your guard up when emails of this nature arrive in your inbox.  After all, Zuck would never email you from a hotmail.com address. Would he?

Stay up to date by following our Facebook page or signing up to receive our newsletter.  As your trusted IT security and IT consulting professionals, we are always on the look out for you.

Microsoft has an exceptional certification program that Information Technology (IT) specialists can take advantage of.  No one knows this better than XCEL IT Analyst Tim Wilson who recently achieved his MCITP Certification.

(Calgary, AB – January 5, 2012) – Certification in the Information Technology (IT) field is a way for IT professionals to demonstrate their expertise in any given area.  Tim Wilson at XCEL can now feel proud that he has achieved his Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) certification.

Mr. Wilson joined the XCEL IT team in June of 2011.  He had already gained numerous certifications prior to being hired as one of XCEL’s IT Analysts including Network+, Security+, SonicWALL CSSA and MCTS:  Server 2008 Network Infrastructure designations.  All the while, he had his eyes on the more advanced MCITP certification.

Certification helps validate an IT Professional’s proficiency in the IT industry.  As Mr. Wilson recommends solutions to XCEL clients, he can now speak with authority as he partners with them in developing solutions that will fit their business needs.  Now that he has earned the MCITP certification, he can add MCITP to his resume, as well as marketing collateral — an asset that verifies that he has a wide arena of skills necessary to perform a particular job role in the IT world.

According to Mr. Wilson, “Earning the MCITP was much harder to achieve than some of my other certifications, but I did it.  I can now feel confident that I have the knowledge needed to work with an XCEL client’s network and offer up the best solutions that will fit their needs.  I want our clients to feel comfortable with my knowledge, and achieving the MCITP certification will give them a sense of confidence that I do know what I’m doing.”

Even though XCEL’s senior level IT analysts have many certifications that demonstrate their proficiency, that is only the beginning in making sure that their clients receive the best IT support in Calgary and the surrounding area.  Coupled with the technical expertise to realize and develop technology goals is each individual’s goal to provide XCEL clients with superior customer service.

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About the Company:  XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary-based IT Service Provider established in 2009.  With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks.  XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa.  Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

According to their mission statement, the NCSA seeks to educate and empower people so they can use the Internet safely and securely from anywhere at any time using any device.  This is important because people are using their smart phones for shopping, reading, updating their Facebook and Twitter accounts, and a lot more. Tablet devices like Kindle and Nook are becoming the latest rage and can be used for more than just reading books, magazines and newspapers in the cloud. These experiences lose their luster when cyber security is breached.  Just as there is anti-spyware for computers, there is also anti-spyware for smart phones and NCSA recommends that people use it.  Even gaming systems need to be protected from viruses and malware; anything that can access the Web is vulnerable.

The NCSA provides information for how to be safe online while at home, at school or at work.  It also has links to reputable sites where anyone can get a free virus scan to find out if his computer has already been compromised by a virus or malware.  The Internet can be a very dangerous place, but people can make it safer by following some basic safety measures like disabling the auto-fill and save password features on the Internet browser or by regularly changing their passwords.

People want to be safe while working and “playing” online, and websites like the NCSA’s give them a place where they can quickly go and easily find out how to do it.

Check them out at http://www.staysafeonline.org/

Concerned about your overall IT security, call your team of trusted IT security specialists today.

Many of you did! And why wouldn’t they? Besides just letting you shop from where you are, digital shopping enhances your shopping experience with the ability to research pricing, reviews, and product purchase options with ease. Results of a survey conducted for National Cyber Security Alliance and McAfee by Zogby International on a wide variety of online safety topics say the same. According to the survey, 50% of Americans have researched potential purchases, 27% have shopped, 18% have made online payments, and 12% have purchased goods from auction sites from their smartphone at least once in the last six months. Looks like this trend is here to stay and with this trend is going to stay threats from online criminals. That’s why you should be more alert when using your smartphone to shop and here are some tips that will help you do just that:

Keep a clean machine: The best defense against viruses, malware, and other online threats is having the latest security software, web browser, and operating system. Also remember to automate software updates; most software programs will automatically connect and update to defend against known risks. It is important that you protect all devices that connect to the Internet (such as computers, smartphones, gaming systems, and other web-enabled devices) from viruses and malware. Scanning “USBs” and other external devices after plugging them is a must-do because they can be infected by viruses and malware.

Protect your personal information: Secure your accounts by asking for protection beyond passwords. These days, many account providers offer additional ways for you to verify who you are before you conduct business on that site.

Passwords that combine capital and lowercase letters with numbers and symbols are more secure. Make sure your passwords meet these criteria when opening new accounts.

If you are asked for personal information when making a transaction, provide only Essential Personal Information. And make sure you know who is asking for the information, and why they need it.

Thwarting cybercriminals becomes easier if you have separate passwords for every account.

It’s normal to forget a password (or two) but that’s no excuse not to write them down and store the list in a safe, secure place away from your computer.

Own your online presence by setting the privacy and security settings on websites to your comfort level for information sharing (if such an option is available).

Connect with care: Cybercriminals often compromise your computer through links in email, tweets, posts, and online advertising. So, even if you know the source, it’s best to delete or mark as junk the links and emails that look suspicious.

It’s safer to limit the type of business you conduct and adjust the security settings on your device to limit who can access your machine when you’re at Wi-Fi hotspots.

If you don’t want to lose your hard earned money to hackers, check to see if the websites you visit are security enabled when banking and shopping. Web addresses with “https://” or “shttp://”, indicate that the site takes extra measures to help secure your information. Http://, on the other hand, is not secure.

Keep in mind that there might be criminals were trying to lure you through holiday shopping offers. So if you happened to come across deals that appear too good to be true or emails that say something has gone wrong with an online purchase, it’s time to be on high alert.

Be Web Wise:

Before a first time purchase from a merchant (or auction seller) new to you, search to see how others have rated them, and don’t forget to check their reviews. You should do these things even if you are a return customer because reputations can change.

Find new ways to stay safe online by checking trusted websites for the latest information. And don’t be greedy; share the info with friends, family, and colleagues! Beware of communications that ask you to act immediately, offer something that sounds too good to be true, or ask for personal information.

A web wise person protects his valuable work, music, photos, and other digital information by making an electronic copy and storing it safely. We’re sure you can try to be one of them.

Be a good netizen:

People at home, at work and around the world can be affected by what you do online. So it’s important that you practice good online habits; it’s going to benefit the global digital community! Also make it a point to post only about others as you have them post about you.

Also, as a good online citizen, it’s your duty to help the authorities fight cyber crime: stolen finances or identities and other cybercrime can be reported to www.ic3.gov (Internet Crime Complaint Center), the Federal Trade Commission at http://onguardonline.gov/file-complaint (if it’s fraud), and to your local law enforcement or state attorney general.

Staying safe online is a tough job. But what would you rather be? Safe? Or sorry?

Unknown hackers had launched “limited, targeted attacks” against high-value Windows users, exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe’s PDF Reader software. The attacks were observed in the wild against Windows users running Adobe Reader version 9.4.6, according to a warning from Adobe, and we assume an emergency patch for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x for Windows has already been released because Adobe had planned to ship it “no later than the week of December 12, 2011.” Adobe has rated this issue as a “critical” one that currently haunts Adobe Reader X (10.1.1) and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh, Adobe Reader 9.4.6 and earlier 9.x versions for UNIX, and Adobe Acrobat X (10.1.1) and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh. And the company has warned that this vulnerability (CVE-2011-2462) could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.

Adobe’s newer Reader X software also has the vulnerability but there are anti-exploitation roadblocks in that version. That explains why the company is in no hurry to release Reader X updates.

But then why is Windows on its high priority list? Look at what Adobe security chief, Brad Arkin, has to say about that, “The reason for addressing this issue quickly for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.4.6 for Windows is simple: This is the version and platform currently being targeted. All real-world attack activity, both in this instance and historically, is limited to Adobe Reader on Windows. We have not received any reports to date of malicious PDFs being used to exploit Adobe Reader or Acrobat for Macintosh or UNIX for this CVE (or any other CVE).” Focusing this release on just Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x for Windows also allows Adobe to ship the update much earlier, thus mitigating threats.

Likewise, Arkin has also made a plea to Adobe users to upgrade to the latest and greatest versions. It goes on as follows:

I’d like to take this moment to encourage any remaining users still running Adobe Reader or Acrobat 9.x (or worse, older unsupported versions) to PLEASE upgrade to Adobe Reader or Acrobat X. We put a tremendous amount of work into securing Adobe Reader and Acrobat X, and, to date, there has not been a single piece of malware identified that is effective against a version X install. Help us help you by running the latest version of the software!

So are you up for the upgrade?  Get it here!

Innovations like the cloud and geolocation technology are two-faced Januses that open doors of convenience for businesses on one side, while simultaneously opening portals of enormous potential for thieves on the other. It doesn’t help that more and more businesses provide their employees with company laptops and/or smart phones that sometimes don’t have the kind of firewall and anti-spyware protection that they should. And if a lost or stolen laptop or smart phone isn’t password protected, the data within is at a thief’s disposal.

Besides predicting an increase in cyber-based mayhem for 2012, Kroll also predicts that two federal geolocation tracking bills that were introduced in 2011 will never become laws. The Location Privacy Protection Act, which was introduced by Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), seeks to close current federal law “loopholes” that, according to Franken, allow device manufacturers, app developers and telephone companies that offer wireless Internet service to freely share their consumer location information with third parties. The Location Privacy Protection Act pertains to non-governmental entities, but the GPS Act, which was introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), covers both governmental and non-governmental entities, including law enforcement. Under the GPS Act, a person must give prior consent before a company could share location information, and law enforcement would have to obtain a warrant before a company could disclose such information about one of its customers.

The two aforementioned bills were introduced long before developer Trevor Eckhart posted a YouTube video detailing the dangers of the Carrier IQ app, which Sprint says it has disabled, that logs every keystroke a user makes and every URL he visits – even secure ones – and sends the information back to the carrier’s database. T-Mobile still has the Carrier IQ app on its HTC Amaze 4G, Samsung Galaxy S II, Exhibit II 4G, LG myTouch, LG myTouch Q, LG DoublePlay and the Blackberry 9900, 9810 and 9360 devices. The potential dangers of such an app exist not only for individual users, but for the carriers as well.

Despite Facebook’s privacy missteps, social engineering attacks, Kroll says, involve thieves using “clever tactics to coerce end users into disclosing sensitive information, downloading malware or both.” To prevent this type of cyberattack, as well as all the others, companies will have to become more vigilant when it comes to keeping track of their employees’ Internet activities and increase firewall and anti-spyware protection on company-issued devices.

Small- and medium-sized business owners have a lot to look forward to in 2012, but they have a lot to prepare for, too, according to IT consultant Kroll. As companies move more of their business operations to the Internet and the cloud, they give cyber criminals more opportunities to steal or corrupt important company data.

XCEL Professional Services’ information technology (IT) staff is growing. Starting December 19, 2011, Ray Archer will begin his new roles and responsibilities as an IT analyst at XCEL.

(Calgary, AB – December 17, 2011) – In order to serve a Calgary client’s needs, a Managed Services Provider (MSP) needs to be well-equipped with a solid professional Information Technology (IT) staff. That is why XCEL Professional Services has asked Ray Archer to join their team as one of their IT analysts.

XCEL’s people aren’t just armed with qualifications. They care that they meet and or exceed client expectations, and they are also committed to using technology that will provide a return on investment. Mr. Archer met XCEL’s high standards to a T due to his own high standards for client satisfaction and believing wholeheartedly in the benefits and capabilities of technology.

As a graduate of Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) with a computer engineering technology diploma, Archer brings a wealth of information and skills that will enable him to reassure clients that he has the knowledge to take care of their technology. The fact that he is a former successful business owner plus eight years of IT consulting experience under his belt in a team environment, it was a natural choice for Colin Knox, President of XCEL, to make the choice to add Ray to the IT team. “His focus on quality, attention to detail and ability to align companies with the right technology and the fact that he had advanced from a senior technical analyst to account manager to team lead roles during his employment for five years at an Alberta-based technology firm was all the proof we needed to know that he was the right person for the job,” said Mr. Knox.

XCEL provides a wide gamut of services for their clients — from managed services, IT projects, vulnerability management, on to multiple services having to do with safeguarding a client’s data and technology systems.

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About XCEL:   XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary-based IT Service Provider established in 2009. With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks. XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa. Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

XCEL Professional Services confirms its dedication to providing the highest quality IT solutions to its clients by making sure they use proven technologies while maintaining a strict standard of quality. Their achievement of the Microsoft Silver Virtualization Competency is verifiable evidence of that commitment. 

(Calgary, AB – December 10, 2011) – It seems as though everyone in the Information Technology (IT) world is talking about virtualization and the benefits for it. Managed Services Providers (MSPs) are gaining momentum in recommending virtualization as a viable option to their clients; however, they don’t often know a lot about it as it’s a fairly new concept. XCEL Professional Services is different; this leading Calgary-based IT services provider knows the subject of virtualization thoroughly as they have just achieved their Microsoft Silver Virtualization Competency.

The Microsoft Virtualization competency sets XCEL aside as being an expert regarding all aspects of virtualization and provides credibility to their clients that they have the expertise to handle their needs. In addition to XCEL already having achieved the Microsoft Silver Midmarket Solution Provider competency, the two competencies combined give XCEL a competitive edge over other MSPs.

Microsoft Silver Virtualization competency is part of the Microsoft Partner Network that provides Partners with opportunities to strengthen their capabilities, expertise to help them serve their clients better and communities that spark innovation and connection. The Silver Virtualization Competency is one of two levels of competencies (the other being the Gold) that Partners can attain.

“Achieving the Microsoft Silver Virtualization Competency drives home the point that our organization is serious about being the best that we can be at what we do — organization as a whole from management to individual analysts,” said Colin Knox, President of XCEL. “This is what allows XCEL to leverage its technical expertise in order to meet and/or exceed our clients’ expectations.”

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About the Company:  XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary-based IT Service Provider established in 2009.  With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks.  XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa.  Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

Becoming a knowledgeable and competent IT professional takes continuing education to ensure that an individual keeps up to date with upcoming trends and systems. Luis Palacios of XCEL Professional Services is just one of those individuals that works tirelessly at reaching Microsoft certification in order to advance his expertise and has attained his certification in MCTS Server Virtualization. 

Microsoft has developed an extensive certification program for Information Technology (IT) support professionals that includes step-by-step certifications that an IT professional can achieve at their own pace. Luis Palacios of XCEL Professional Services just recently achieved his Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certification with Server Virtualization specialization.

Virtualization is a critical aspect of every IT department due to its capability to save money while improving business continuity. Getting certified in this field verifies that an IT specialist is highly proficient in this increasingly popular area. The TS: Windows Server Virtualization, Configuring test may be counted as credit towards the Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) certification.

According to Mr. Palacios, “This is not an easy certification to achieve. The requirements are stringent; I needed to have more than 1 1/2 years of experience in working with multiple systems. Now that I have the certification, XCEL clients can feel reassured that I know what I’m talking about when I’m suggesting server virtualization solutions to them.”

There are plenty of resources and tools that are available from Microsoft which allows IT professionals to pursue Microsoft Certification which will enable them to keep their skills relevant, applicable, and competitive. Microsoft is also recognized as a global standard which increases a certified individual’s opportunities for advancement.

XCEL’s number one focus is the client; therefore they take great pride in providing superior customer service and technical expertise — all the time. Only senior-level IT analysts are added to the organization’s staff so as to minimize extended time being taken on projects that a junior technician might need. Clients can be confident that when an XCEL Analyst is assigned to the project, they are competent and knowledgeable to handle all network issues.

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XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary-based IT Service Provider established in 2009.  With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks.  XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa.  Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

Besides the many certifications that John Azevedo from XCEL Professional Services has added to his credentials, he has now gone one step further and achieved the MCTS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Configuration certification which exhibits the drive and ambition he has for being a top highly-skilled IT professional.

It takes many steps to climb the ladder to achievement in the Microsoft Certification Program. Mr. Azevedo has already achieved his Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) Certification during his employ with XCEL Professional Services. Now he has taken another step and completed his Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Configuration.

The MCTS program is one of six various Microsoft Certification tracks that an Information Technology (IT) professionals can take to improve their skills and expertise. Included in the MCTS certification are thirteen additional certifications that an individual can pursue. The MCTS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Configuration exam needed to be completed in order to receive Exchange Server certification.

Mr. Azevedo met all the requirements of the certification as he works on a continuous basis as a Messaging Generalist that has the responsibility for maintenance and administration of the Exchange servers in an enterprise environment. According to Mr. Azevedo, “The Microsoft TS: Microsoft Exchange Server exam was rigorous and covered seven skills, each carrying a weight of 13-15 percent. While it was very intense, I am looking forward to using the knowledge and expertise that I learned from the training at XCEL so I can offer worthwhile solutions for our clients.”

XCEL is a Calgary-based leading IT services provider that excels in providing cost effective IT solutions to the Calgary business market. The managed services provider is the leader amongst IT Companies in Calgary, due in large part to the exceptional senior analysts they utilize to service their clients while providing first-class customer service and technology expertise.

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XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary-based IT Service Provider established in 2009. With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks. XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa. Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, sit ut justo hendrerit dui a, ligula ea auctor turpis vel vel, ut aliquam lectus et mauris neque donec. Quam pretium felis luctus. Amet vitae nec dolor. Neque vulputate mattis ante nec, hymenaeos porta, velit mattis vitae suspendisse donec nunc nullam, nulla curabitur risus nulla non nulla. Neque eu, sollicitudin facilisi lacus facilisi integer pede elit, arcu wisi egestas ante aliquet maecenas fusce, eros ut lectus cum aut quis tempus. Ultricies nunc luctus nunc. Tincidunt quis fugiat magna accumsan nulla ut, blanditiis vel morbi a natoque nulla. Non ac sem pretium, morbi erat suscipit accumsan nullam aenean. Elit vitae nulla ac vivamus vel eget, nulla pede sit, lectus facilisis, dolorem mauris id dis proin suspendisse, eget ac cras nec donec purus. Eros at eget nisl nisl, est a eu mi velit et, scelerisque potenti volutpat velit nam. Neque est neque pulvinar, amet odio proin feugiat porta, pellentesque congue adipiscing, vivamus ultrices ut.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, sit ut justo hendrerit dui a, ligula ea auctor turpis vel vel, ut aliquam lectus et mauris neque donec. Quam pretium felis luctus. Amet vitae nec dolor. Neque vulputate mattis ante nec, hymenaeos porta, velit mattis vitae suspendisse donec nunc nullam, nulla curabitur risus nulla non nulla. Neque eu, sollicitudin facilisi lacus facilisi integer pede elit, arcu wisi egestas ante aliquet maecenas fusce, eros ut lectus cum aut quis tempus. Ultricies nunc luctus nunc. Tincidunt quis fugiat magna accumsan nulla ut, blanditiis vel morbi a natoque nulla. Non ac sem pretium, morbi erat suscipit accumsan nullam aenean. Elit vitae nulla ac vivamus vel eget, nulla pede sit, lectus facilisis, dolorem mauris id dis proin suspendisse, eget ac cras nec donec purus. Eros at eget nisl nisl, est a eu mi velit et, scelerisque potenti volutpat velit nam. Neque est neque pulvinar, amet odio proin feugiat porta, pellentesque congue adipiscing, vivamus ultrices ut.

There are many steps in a ladder to climb in order to achieve success.  An Information Technology (IT) specialist takes one step at a time. Terry Ingram of XCEL Professional Services has gone the extra mile and achieved SonicWALL’s Master CSSA certification.

Certifications for a Managed Service Provider (MSP) are verification that an Information Technology (IT) support professional is knowledgeable and has the necessary expertise to reassure a client that they are adept in solving the client’s issues. Terry Ingram has successfully achieved SonicWALL’s Master Certified SonicWALL Security Administrator (CSSA).

To be eligible for the MCCSA certification, Mr. Ingram needed to first pass the CSSA certification which was developed as a means to recognize network professionals who take and successfully achieve a passing grade on the certification exam. Master CSSA certification takes the IT support professional higher up the ladder in the certification process and is a culmination of knowledge derived from multiple SonicWALL technical classes, technical eLearning courses, and real-world experiences across multiple product disciplines with wide exposure to SonicWALL SonicOS firmware, VPN solutions and security applications.

According to Mr. Ingram, “The exam was pretty intense, covering what each SonicWALL product is about from start to finish, as well as some techniques to counter any objections that might arise from the client’s side.”

XCEL has high standards for their Calgary IT support analysts. The organization encourages each team member to constantly refresh their knowledge bank with new information updates and new technology breakthroughs. Getting certified in the various programs out there is just one way they can do this, plus provide reassurance to their clients that the support staff excel in their field.

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About the Company: XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary IT Service Provider established in 2009. With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks. XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa. Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

Building on Microsoft competencies is the foundation for a managed services provider to achieve success. XCEL Professional Services has successfully achieved their competency for becoming a Microsoft Silver Midmarket Solution Provider which is just the first of many stepping stones that XCEL has taken towards achieving that success.

Microsoft is known for having a very robust certification and competency testing program. XCEL Professional Services Ltd. has recently attained the Microsoft Silver Midmarket Solution Provider competency.

Silver Competency Exam and Customer Evidence Detail requirements are stringent with no less than two staff members needing to be employed or contracted MCPs who have each passed one of fourteen exams, as well as submitting three unique customer references that feature implementation, deployment, customization, or maintenance of any of a number of products.

As a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, XCEL is committed to working with Microsoft to best meet their organization’s business needs, as well as their clients’. In addition, collaboration with other partners in order to drive opportunities while sharing and exchanging ideas is a prime focus of XCEL.

“The information technology industry is a highly competitive arena,” said Colin Knox, President of XCEL Professional Services. “We need to do whatever it takes to ensure that we stay up-to-date on the latest trends and products of our partners. Engaging in the Microsoft Partner Network and taking advantage of what they have to offer is the first line of offense for achieving success.”

XCEL is known for being on the cutting edge for learning about new and innovative products first hand. As a Microsoft Silver Midmarket Solution Provider, XCEL’s clients may feel confident that their IT provider has the knowledge and expertise to solve their issues or recommend new solutions and puts XCEL among the top 5 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide.

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About the Company: XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary-based IT Service Provider established in 2009. With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks. XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa. Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

Terry Ingram, IT Analyst at XCEL Professional Services, continues to add Microsoft certifications to his already impressive resume. The achievement of his MCTS Server Virtualization will give him the knowledge and expertise he will need to make recommendations and provide solutions to XCEL clients in the increasingly popular field of virtualization.

Technical certification classes provide verification that an Information Technology (IT) professional is accomplished at their craft, or in this case IT support. Terry Ingram at XCEL Professional Services Ltd. not only has his Master CSSA Certification (MCSSA), but he is now certified as a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) with Server Virtualization specialization. MCTS candidates are capable of implementing, building, troubleshooting, and debugging a particular Microsoft technology.

Virtualization is an essential part of any IT department because it saves money and improves business continuity. Getting certified clearly identifies an IT specialist as being one of the most skilled professionals in an area that is gaining increasing popularity at warp speed. The TS: Windows Server Virtualization, Configuring test may be counted as credit towards the Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) certification.

According to Mr. Ingram, “When Microsoft said that the test wasn’t easy, they weren’t kidding! I feel great about successfully achieving this certification. The learning I gained has taught me a lot about server virtualization which I will be able to continue utilizing here at XCEL in order to provide valuable solutions to our clients.”

Through efficient processes and use of technology, XCEL Professional Services can leverage its technical expertise in network infrastructure of which virtualization is just one aspect. Not only is Mr. Ingram a key player as an IT Analyst in this segment, he also plays a vital role in the management of disaster recovery and continuity, as well as collaboration of their clients’ technology systems.

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XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary IT Support Provider established in 2009. With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks. XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa. Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

Looking back over my last three decades in computers (actually 34 years now), technology has come a very long way and changed a lot. I saw the introduction of the personal computer, the very first computer networks, email, the dawn of the Internet, only very recently Cloud computing – and now tons of personal mobile devices.

And these new personal devices are now making their way into nearly every business environment in a multitude of ways, but most concerningly as: USB memory sticks or jump drives, smart phones, laptops and tablet computers. These personally purchased and unmanaged devices are becoming integrated into business environments that already had business-purchased and securely managed laptops, smart phones and tablet PCs. In fact, many businesses are now encouraging their employees to BYOD – or Bring Your Own Device.

So now the business networks that we care for are quickly becoming networks of previously un-imanageable complexity. The world of technology is clearly changing again and my business must change too – and find solutions fast!

Our immediate challenges to be answered greatly center around MDM (or Mobile Device Management):

• How do we manage business data on so many different devices?
• How do we manage all of these devices, even those not actually owned by the company?
• How to we protect the business data and isolate it from people and devices that are not authorized?
• If required, how do we remove business data from a personal device without harming the personal data?
• How do we then maximize the usability, function and productivity of these environments and all these new devices?

While a lot of people and vendors are already proposing products and solutions to address these issues, the truth is that no one knows all these answers – yet. But we are already attending industry conferences with peers, participating in online seminars, meeting with vendors and looking at lots and lots of products. Some of the early answers that we are sharing with clients today include:

• Making business owners aware of these challenges and discussing options.
• Only allowing personal devices access to company data if that device can be remotely managed and if required, remotely wiped of all company data.

Related, but not exclusive to managing personal mobile devices, we have been encouraging clients to allow us to initiate:

• Regular automated remote backups of laptops.
• Encryption of data or hard drives on laptop computers.
• Purchase laptops, or programs for them, which allow the easy segregation of company-owned and personal data.

So change is nothing new for technology, and as usual, it is never boring – the answers are out there and we’ll find them for you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 at 12:41 and is filed under Blog, Blogger – Ed Correia, Computer memory, computer networks, Dashtop mobile, Encryption, find solutions, Hard disk drive, Laptop, Mobile technology, Non-volatile memory, online seminars, Option N.V., Personal computer, personal devices, personal mobile devices, President & CEO, Sagacent Technologies Inc., smart phones, Tablet PC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Looking back over my last three decades in computers (actually 34 years now), technology has come a very long way and changed a lot. I saw the introduction of the personal computer, the very first computer networks, email, the dawn of the Internet, only very recently Cloud computing – and now tons of personal mobile devices.

And these new personal devices are now making their way into nearly every business environment in a multitude of ways, but most concerningly as: USB memory sticks or jump drives, smart phones, laptops and tablet computers. These personally purchased and unmanaged devices are becoming integrated into business environments that already had business-purchased and securely managed laptops, smart phones and tablet PCs. In fact, many businesses are now encouraging their employees to BYOD – or Bring Your Own Device.

So now the business networks that we care for are quickly becoming networks of previously un-imanageable complexity. The world of technology is clearly changing again and my business must change too – and find solutions fast!

Our immediate challenges to be answered greatly center around MDM (or Mobile Device Management):

• How do we manage business data on so many different devices?
• How do we manage all of these devices, even those not actually owned by the company?
• How to we protect the business data and isolate it from people and devices that are not authorized?
• If required, how do we remove business data from a personal device without harming the personal data?
• How do we then maximize the usability, function and productivity of these environments and all these new devices?

While a lot of people and vendors are already proposing products and solutions to address these issues, the truth is that no one knows all these answers – yet. But we are already attending industry conferences with peers, participating in online seminars, meeting with vendors and looking at lots and lots of products. Some of the early answers that we are sharing with clients today include:

• Making business owners aware of these challenges and discussing options.
• Only allowing personal devices access to company data if that device can be remotely managed and if required, remotely wiped of all company data.

Related, but not exclusive to managing personal mobile devices, we have been encouraging clients to allow us to initiate:

• Regular automated remote backups of laptops.
• Encryption of data or hard drives on laptop computers.
• Purchase laptops, or programs for them, which allow the easy segregation of company-owned and personal data.

So change is nothing new for technology, and as usual, it is never boring – the answers are out there and we’ll find them for you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 at 12:41 and is filed under Blog, Blogger – Ed Correia, Computer memory, computer networks, Dashtop mobile, Encryption, find solutions, Hard disk drive, Laptop, Mobile technology, Non-volatile memory, online seminars, Option N.V., Personal computer, personal devices, personal mobile devices, President & CEO, Sagacent Technologies Inc., smart phones, Tablet PC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Guest Blogger – Ed Correia, President & CEO, Sagacent Technologies, Inc.

Looking back over my last three decades in computers (actually 34 years now), technology has come a very long way and changed a lot. I saw the introduction of the personal computer, the very first computer networks, email, the dawn of the Internet, only very recently Cloud computing – and now tons of personal mobile devices.

And these new personal devices are now making their way into nearly every business environment in a multitude of ways, but most concerningly as: USB memory sticks or jump drives, smart phones, laptops and tablet computers. These personally purchased and unmanaged devices are becoming integrated into business environments that already had business-purchased and securely managed laptops, smart phones and tablet PCs. In fact, many businesses are now encouraging their employees to BYOD – or Bring Your Own Device.

So now the business networks that we care for are quickly becoming networks of previously un-imanageable complexity. The world of technology is clearly changing again and my business must change too – and find solutions fast!

Our immediate challenges to be answered greatly center around MDM (or Mobile Device Management):

• How do we manage business data on so many different devices?
• How do we manage all of these devices, even those not actually owned by the company?
• How to we protect the business data and isolate it from people and devices that are not authorized?
• If required, how do we remove business data from a personal device without harming the personal data?
• How do we then maximize the usability, function and productivity of these environments and all these new devices?

While a lot of people and vendors are already proposing products and solutions to address these issues, the truth is that no one knows all these answers – yet. But we are already attending industry conferences with peers, participating in online seminars, meeting with vendors and looking at lots and lots of products. Some of the early answers that we are sharing with clients today include:

• Making business owners aware of these challenges and discussing options.
• Only allowing personal devices access to company data if that device can be remotely managed and if required, remotely wiped of all company data.

Related, but not exclusive to managing personal mobile devices, we have been encouraging clients to allow us to initiate:

• Regular automated remote backups of laptops.
• Encryption of data or hard drives on laptop computers.
• Purchase laptops, or programs for them, which allow the easy segregation of company-owned and personal data.

So change is nothing new for technology, and as usual, it is never boring – the answers are out there and we’ll find them for you.

For XCEL to be a total solutions IT provider to clients, this leading Calgary IT support company must develop strong partnerships with those organizations that have the best and most proven solutions within the IT industry that XCEL can offer to clients. Becoming a SonicWALL Silver Medallion Partner opens the door to work with a strong organization that can give them the needed information in which to sharpen their security offerings and gain an edge over their competitors.

(Calgary, AB – November 24, 2011) - There are many partnership programs that Managed Service Providers (MSPs) can be invited to or accepted into. One of the latest partnership programs that XCEL Professional Services Ltd. is now officially recognized for is the SonicWALL Silver Medallion partner.

The SonicWALL Medallion Partner Program allows an MSP to create a more profitable security practice. Partnering with SonicWALL means that XCEL will receive a host of benefits that will enable them to better service their clients.

SonicWALL®, Inc. provides intelligent network security and data protection solutions that give customers control over their own network security. SonicWALL gives Medallion Partners a ready market with opportunity for increased margins and recurring revenues. SonicWALL supports a variety of reseller business models, each geared to be customized to each of its tiers: Gold, Silver and Approved, with specific benefits and requirements to match each tier of the business model.

According to Colin Knox, “One of the benefits of the Silver Medallion Partnership Program is that it gives us first look at, training in and testing of new SonicWALL beta products. This will give us a unique opportunity to receive hands-on training on pre-released SonicWALL products which will give us an advantage when the time comes to recommend these products when they go live. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for benefits received.”

XCEL takes great pride in offering their clients a high level of customer service and the technical expertise to realize and develop their technology goals. Being proactive in learning anything and everything about SonicWALL products establishes XCEL as a leader in the eyes of their clients. Currently XCEL has 4 of the 15 Certified SonicWALL Security Administrators (CSSA) in Alberta, and the only Master CSSA in Alberta on staff.

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About the Company: XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary IT Services Provider established in 2009. With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks. XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa. Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

Terry Ingram, IT Analyst at XCEL Professional Services, continues to add Microsoft certifications to his already impressive resume. The achievement of his MCTS Server Virtualization will give him the knowledge and expertise he will need to make recommendations and provide solutions to XCEL clients in the increasingly popular field of virtualization.

Technical certification classes provide verification that an Information Technology (IT) professional is accomplished at their craft, or in this case IT support. Terry Ingram at XCEL Professional Services Ltd. not only has his Master CSSA Certification (MCSSA), but he is now certified as a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) with Server Virtualization specialization. MCTS candidates are capable of implementing, building, troubleshooting, and debugging a particular Microsoft technology.

Virtualization is an essential part of any IT department because it saves money and improves business continuity. Getting certified clearly identifies an IT specialist as being one of the most skilled professionals in an area that is gaining increasing popularity at warp speed. The TS: Windows Server Virtualization, Configuring test may be counted as credit towards the Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) certification.

According to Mr. Ingram, “When Microsoft said that the test wasn’t easy, they weren’t kidding! I feel great about successfully achieving this certification. The learning I gained has taught me a lot about server virtualization which I will be able to continue utilizing here at XCEL in order to provide valuable solutions to our clients.”

Through efficient processes and use of technology, XCEL Professional Services can leverage its technical expertise in network infrastructure of which virtualization is just one aspect. Not only is Mr. Ingram a key player as an IT Analyst in this segment, he also plays a vital role in the management of disaster recovery and continuity, as well as collaboration of their clients’ technology systems.

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XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary IT Support Provider established in 2009. With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks. XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa. Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

Building on Microsoft competencies is the foundation for a managed services provider to achieve success. XCEL Professional Services has successfully achieved their competency for becoming a Microsoft Silver Midmarket Solution Provider which is just the first of many stepping stones that XCEL has taken towards achieving that success.

Microsoft is known for having a very robust certification and competency testing program. XCEL Professional Services Ltd. has recently attained the Microsoft Silver Midmarket Solution Provider competency.

Silver Competency Exam and Customer Evidence Detail requirements are stringent with no less than two staff members needing to be employed or contracted MCPs who have each passed one of fourteen exams, as well as submitting three unique customer references that feature implementation, deployment, customization, or maintenance of any of a number of products.

As a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, XCEL is committed to working with Microsoft to best meet their organization’s business needs, as well as their clients’. In addition, collaboration with other partners in order to drive opportunities while sharing and exchanging ideas is a prime focus of XCEL.

“The information technology industry is a highly competitive arena,” said Colin Knox, President of XCEL Professional Services. “We need to do whatever it takes to ensure that we stay up-to-date on the latest trends and products of our partners. Engaging in the Microsoft Partner Network and taking advantage of what they have to offer is the first line of offense for achieving success.”

XCEL is known for being on the cutting edge for learning about new and innovative products first hand. As a Microsoft Silver Midmarket Solution Provider, XCEL’s clients may feel confident that their IT provider has the knowledge and expertise to solve their issues or recommend new solutions and puts XCEL among the top 5 percent of Microsoft partners worldwide.

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About the Company: XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary-based IT Service Provider established in 2009. With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks. XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa. Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

There are many steps in a ladder to climb in order to achieve success.  An Information Technology (IT) specialist takes one step at a time. Terry Ingram of XCEL Professional Services has gone the extra mile and achieved SonicWALL’s Master CSSA certification.

Certifications for a Managed Service Provider (MSP) are verification that an Information Technology (IT) support professional is knowledgeable and has the necessary expertise to reassure a client that they are adept in solving the client’s issues. Terry Ingram has successfully achieved SonicWALL’s Master Certified SonicWALL Security Administrator (CSSA).

To be eligible for the MCCSA certification, Mr. Ingram needed to first pass the CSSA certification which was developed as a means to recognize network professionals who take and successfully achieve a passing grade on the certification exam. Master CSSA certification takes the IT support professional higher up the ladder in the certification process and is a culmination of knowledge derived from multiple SonicWALL technical classes, technical eLearning courses, and real-world experiences across multiple product disciplines with wide exposure to SonicWALL SonicOS firmware, VPN solutions and security applications.

According to Mr. Ingram, “The exam was pretty intense, covering what each SonicWALL product is about from start to finish, as well as some techniques to counter any objections that might arise from the client’s side.”

XCEL has high standards for their Calgary IT support analysts. The organization encourages each team member to constantly refresh their knowledge bank with new information updates and new technology breakthroughs. Getting certified in the various programs out there is just one way they can do this, plus provide reassurance to their clients that the support staff excel in their field.

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About the Company: XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary IT Service Provider established in 2009. With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks. XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa. Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

Tim Wilson from XCEL Professional Services has taken an all-important step in increasing his technical expertise in Unified Threat Management (UTM) by successfully achieving SomicWALL CSSA Certification that will provide value in his ability to recommend to XCEL’s clients sound solutions in the area of  Calgary IT security. 

Tim Wilson at XCEL Professional Services Achieves His SonicWALL CSSA Certification 

Technical certification classes are abundant in nature and can be a big asset to an Information Technology (IT) Specialists’ knowledgebase. One such certification training course that Tim Wilson of XCEL Professional Services Ltd. enrolled in and achieved certification for was the Certified SonicWALL Security Administrator (CSSA) technical training.

Gaining certification for the CSSA is no easy matter. In order to be eligible for the certification, an individual must demonstrate that he or she has technical competency for a specific discipline by testing and passing the SonicWALL certification exam with a passing score.

To enable the network In order to better meet your training needs, SonicWALL has developed a series of free on-line eLearning courses.  These courses are designed to provide you with knowledge and practice necessary to install and configure a number of our solutions.  These courses, when coupled with the optional certification exam, can also be used to meet your CSSA certification needs.

The CSSA certification provides verifiable proof that Mr. Wilson is knowledgeable in the specialized area of Unified Threat Management (UTM) and well able to recommend UTM solutions as a viable security approach to Small- to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs). According to Mr. Wilson, “I’ve always felt that a technical specialist should be well-armed with the most comprehensive education available, and also continue education so as to stay up to date with the latest innovations, products and best-practices in IT security available so as to best service our clients. The CSSA certification is just one achievement that will enable me to do this.”

Calgary IT security  consulting is a service that XCEL provides to SMBs. Their expert IT specialists like Tim Wilson have the experience and knowledge to help small to medium-sized businesses create and implement an IT security plan to protect their IT environment, and intellectual and financial assets against internal and external threats so that clients have a secure business.

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XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary IT Service Provider established in 2009.  With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks.  XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa.  Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

For SonicWALL Support in Calgary look no further than XCEL Professional Services.

What, according to you, is a company’s biggest security risk? Holes in the corporate network? Think again!

It’s you! With hacking attacks against companies getting bigger and high profile by the day (remember the breaches at Sony and Citigroup this year?), companies have learned to secure and strengthen their networks the hard way, which shifts the hackers’ attention to you, or the employees to be precise.

These days, hackers do not have to work so hard get into your company’s network; they can just make you do it for them! Employees, even well-intentioned ones, are exploited to gain access to company networks. In case you didn’t know, this is called social engineering where hackers manipulate people into divulging confidential information, often after completing thorough reconnaissance on their victims. Posting troves of information about yourself and your job online? Unless you want to become a victim, stop doing that right away.

Trust us; social engineering is on the rise these days with many people falling easily for it. Look at the results of a recent test conducted by KnowBe4, a firm that provides security-awareness training, if you don’t believe us. To find what percentage of a group of companies would be susceptible to phishing attacks, the firm had sent phishing emails to employees at 81 companies from a reputable and trusted server, 43% of which had one or more employee click on the link in the emails. The second test involved the use of unknown and untrusted servers (which were filtered out by many corporate email systems, by the way) but at least one person in 15% of the companies still clicked on the emails. You might ask what is one person compared to a thousand, but when it comes to malware, all it takes for the damage to be done is one person.

So, don’t forget to think long and hard before clicking on that link in your email or posting your info online!

Fun and Exciting IT Company Looking to Hire!

IT Technical Analyst

XCEL Professional Services is currently accepting applications for an IT Analyst. Join our team of young and dynamic Calgary IT professionals that work together to offer professional services, and day to day Calgary IT support and maintenance to the Calgary business market. XCEL Professional Services takes pride in our ability to fully understand the business needs of our clients, and confidently advise them on how to leverage technology to achieve their vision. This is a fulltime permanent employment position.

Responsibilities:

• Report daily to the Manager Client Services on daily projects, tasks, and assignments
• Provide excellent customer service to all current, and potential clients
• Provide day to day IT support to clients
• Project implementations of network infrastructure
• Advise clients on IT decisions
• Make suggestions directly to management on the operations of the company through our open door policy
• Maintain an open and honest relationship with XCEL Professional Services management

Essential Qualifications:

• Fluent Oral/Written communication in English and French
• Capable of travelling up to 50% of the time internationally
• Network Infrastructure Virtualization
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, 2007, 2010
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 2008 with Active Directory
• Strong Technical Writing Skills
• Strong Communication Skills
• Self Starter looking for a challenge in a fast paced environment
• Strong understanding of Disaster Recovery methodology
• Business Savvy
• Drivers License and Reliable Vehicle
• Ability to multi-task and prioritize on a daily basis
• Criminal record check

Preferred Qualifications:

• Cisco
• SharePoint
• SonicWall
• Citrix/Terminal Services
• Microsoft SQL

With the support and experience of XCEL Professional Services management, all employees have the opportunity to gain the confidence and knowledge that they need to take on the challenges of offering day to day support and professional services to a variety of clients with individual visions and missions in sight.

If you are interested in joining our team, please forward your resume to careers@xpsl.ca.

Please note that only qualified candidates will be contacted for an interview. Thank you for your interest.

The Calgary Chamber of Commerce is in tune with the local community and their business needs. They believe in linking the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit of Calgarians with reward and recognition. XCEL is just one of three businesses to be chosen as a finalist for The Chamber’s Emerging Enterprise of the Year Award for 2011. 

Xcel Has Been Chosen As Emerging Enterprise of the Year 2011 Award Finalist 

(Calgary, AB – September 16, 2011) – It’s not often that a Calgary local small business gets recognition for being one of the best in the Information Technology (IT) field. XCEL Professional Services Ltd. has received recognition from the Calgary Chamber of Commerce for being chosen as one of three finalists for the Emerging Enterprise of the Year Award for 2011.

It was back in 1982 that the Calgary Chamber of Commerce first presented the prestigious RBC Small Business of the Year Award to local business owners. As the years flashed forward, the Emerging Enterprise of the Year Award was added in 1998 to celebrate new, up-and-coming small businesses. In order to meet eligibility requirements, the nominee must be an Alberta resident owner-manager. In addition, the business must be in operation less than three years, located in Calgary, and employ 10 or less people.

The Calgary Chamber of Commerce Small Business Week Committee, whose decision will be final, will be responsible for the selection of the award winner who will be recognized at an Awards Ceremony during the 2011 Small Business Week to be held from October 17-21. At the same time, the winner will be presented with the Emerging Enterprise of the Year award.

The Calgary Chamber of Commerce is driven by membership into the Chamber. Their primary object is to connect, serve and support the Calgary business community in its endeavour to excel. The Calgary Chamber of Commerce is recognized as being one of the most progressive and influential organizations throughout the country.

According to Colin Knox, President at XCEL, “I couldn’t be more surprised and happier that we have been chosen as a finalist for the Emerging Enterprise of the Year Award. It’s taken a lot of hard work to get where we are today. Being recognized in this manner just substantiates that we are moving forward in leaps and bounds.”

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About the Company:  XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary IT Service Provider established in 2009.  With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks.  XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa.  Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

Look what your team at XCEL found out the other day.   As your trusted Calgary IT support team we thought this would interest many of across Calgary and Southern Alberta.

We know that many of you have a Facebook account, here is something you might find interesting; Facebook passwords are not case sensitive! This means there is a second password you can log into your account with. Talk about unique passwords!

If you have a Facebook password with all the characters in lowercase, you’ll still be able to log in with the caps lock key on. If you have all the characters in uppercase, you don’t necessarily have to have the caps lock key on. And if your password happens to be a combination of both cases, you’ll just have to reverse the case of every character in your password. For example, your Facebook password is foLLowUS, but even typing FOllOWus can give you access to your account. It’s just a matter of flipping the cases of the characters.

In case you are wondering if this is by design, we’ll spare you the trouble. According to Fred Wolens at the Facebook PR security team, this IS by design and they have been allowing this for a while now. And guess what? There is another form of password (other than your original password, of course) that lets you access your Facebook account. Have you ever tried to log into Facebook through a mobile device? Then you must have seen how, sometimes, it capitalizes the first character of a word. Well, it looks like you need not worry about appropriately reversing the case of your password’s first character as Facebook accepts your password even with the first letter capitalized. These other forms of password are accepted to help overcome the most common reasons that authentic logins are rejected.

So, does this have an impact on user security? According to Wolens, it doesn’t. Even after your password is accepted, Facebook still performs a number of security checks like prompting you with a verification code if you log in from a questionable device, or if you log in from two locations that are very far apart from each other. Plus, they claim that your passwords are safe. “We do not store our passwords in plain text we use several encryption technologies and techniques to maintain the security of our information,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

Despite all this assurance, we can’t help but wonder if this ease of use is going to turn into a security problem later on.

XCEL wants to make sure that you are kept aware of any potential security risks that may impact you or your business here in Calgary.  Give our team a call if you are in need a quality Calgary computer and IT support.

Do your younger employees tend to fix technology related problems on their own? Are they more willing than older employees to help fix a problem themselves? Well, you’ve got Millennials on your workforce and what can you expect from a generation that has been familiar with electronic gadgets all along and has grown up with an ever-present internet?

A recent survey commissioned by remote support appliance vendor Bomgar has proved that this is true indeed. Younger employees do try to fix their own gear. But an accompanying analysis by GigaOM Pro has concluded that though this kind of self-sufficiency lowers the burden on IT staff, it has its own set of disadvantages.

Out of the 400 U.S. office workers between the ages of 20 and 29 who were surveyed by Isurus Market Research, 60 percent of the participants agreed that it should take a help desk 10 minutes or less to solve a problem. Well, that’s a pretty big expectation there but given the helping hand they give in problem solving, it should not be much of an issue for the Help Desk. So, how do these Millennials fix their own gear? They turn to the internet, of course!

Looking for solutions on Google or asking for help on forums is what 71 percent of the respondents said they did. This is good news for the overworked IT staff but many support staff are not used to supporting this kind of user. This is where self-help tools and easily searchable FAQs should come in handy. Although troubleshooting problems on their own means reduced workload for the IT staff, it also means exposure of sensitive data or possibility of further damage. Asking for help on forums can expose information about a company’s IT practices, or do some damage to the company brand.

Likewise, Google might come up with a bad solution that might lead to further breakage. The survey also found that 80% of IT managers felt that Millennials had “different” or “very different” expectations about technology, when compared to their more senior peers. If your company happens to have one of these IT managers, a number of white papers have been posted by Bomgar which further explain how IT staff could support the Millennials in a better way.

Always trust your Calgary IT support specialists at XCEL.  We provide complete IT solutions for business throughout Calgary and Southern Alberta.  Trust us today to help your business.

Windows 8 is coming; that’s exciting news in itself and the folks at Microsoft spilling the beans about its newest (and amazing) features one by one is adding more to the hype. And from what we have come to know lately, Microsoft is incorporating a software stack in its upcoming OS to natively support devices based on the USB 3.0 interconnect.

In an entry on the company’s Building Windows 8 blog, Dennis Flanagan, Microsoft’s director of program management for the devices and networking group mentioned that the growing support for USB 3.0 and wide usage of USB 2.0 was a compelling reason to improve the USB software stack. (The hardware support for USB 3.0 is growing indeed. Intel has already declared to integrate USB 3.0 support in chipsets for processors which will reach PCs early next year. AMD has already done the integration in its Fusion chipsets, which are already shipping for PCs.) He also mentioned that all new PCs are expected to offer USB 3.0 ports by 2015 and in the same year, over 2 billion new ‘SuperSpeed’ USB devices will be sold.

According to Flanagan, based on the “design principles” of USB 3.0, Microsoft is writing a new software stack and controller for Windows 8, which will bring plug-and-play support for new devices such as external storage, webcams and keyboards. However, the existing software stack is being retained so older USB devices will be supported too.

The successor to the USB 2.0 standard promises 10 times faster data transfer between computers and external peripherals – cameras and storage devices, for example.

USB 3.0, however, is slower than rival interconnecting technology Thunderbolt (which is used in Apple products) developed by Intel. While the former transfers data at speeds of up to 5 gigabits per second, Thunderbolt can transfer data at up to 10 gigabits per second. Currently supporting the PCI Express and DisplayPort protocols, Thunderbolt does not require any OS support beyond existing software stacks for those protocols. Based on copper wires, the interconnect is expected to ultimately rely on optical technology which will boost transfer speed and distance.

This, however, isn’t going to stop the USB 3.0 from growing since it has Microsoft backing it. Higher transfer speeds for consumer devices can also be expected, according to Jim McGregor, research director at In-Stat. He also stated that since the USB is so heavily tied to the largest growth segment of the market, mobile devices, for both interconnectivity and power, it will be the predominant interface.

Wireless charging, however, could trump both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt, if it takes off, that is, said McGregor. While transfer speeds may not be that fast, device makers are showing interest in the technology and peripheral connectors on mobile devices are not needed sounds appealing.

While drivers give average PC like us have nothing to worry about, native support for USB 3.0 in Windows 8 is something that isn’t going to hurt us either.

Are you looking forward to Windows 8?  Need to learn more?  Contact your Calgary IT Support specialists at XCEL today to learn more.

Finding a leader is a difficult thing to do. What qualities should you look for and how do you know if they are there? Read on and find out:

1. Integrity: Take an individual without integrity and you get a BAD leader. So, how do you know if your candidate has integrity? Just outline several hypothetical situations drawn from business case studies and see if your interviewee can recognize subtle ethical issues like trust and transparency they hold.
2. Empathy: A leader can’t possibly lead if he doesn’t understand what his followers are feeling. To see if your candidate has empathy, pay particular attention to his listening skills. You can also use crisis simulations to see how empathetic the person is to others under pressure. A discussion of a case study in which empathy plays a role comes in handy too.
3. Emotional intelligence: A leader should know what his weaknesses are and should thus be able control himself, especially when under the scrutiny his position brings along. Asking candidates about their past experiences might be helpful if you want to find out what they have learned and how honest they are in revealing not so stellar performances. Candidates who are passionately committed to career development should also be on your radar.
4. Vision: The ability to imagine a better future and the capacity to lead followers to it; this is what you should be looking for in a leader. Innovative thinking is the best way to demonstrate vision, so look for innovative thinking. Also look for candidates who are part realists and part optimists; this healthy blend is what it takes to persuade others to accept change and make something even of the worst of situations.
5. Judgment: A leader must be able to make good decisions even under pressure and this is something that takes experience and an ability to control the emotional influences that distort decision-making. To find out how good your candidate’s judgment is, use case studies which reflect issues in the candidate’s own organization. The precise answer is not important; it’s how the candidate thinks under pressure.
6. Courage: Is your candidate capable of withstanding the pressures of leadership? Facing attacks and setbacks with poise? Taking educated risks? Find this out by giving your candidate a hypothetical scenario. The answers should be evaluated according to three key elements of courage: commitment to core values, ability to navigate uncertainty, and patience.
7. Passion: A passion to succeed and a passion for what he’s doing; you’ve got to look for this in your candidate. If your candidate speaks convincingly about how the organizational mission and his personal passions are intertwined during the interview, you’ve just found your leader!

Keep these 7 points in mind when looking for a leader and you’ll definitely do a great job of finding the perfect candidate.

Looking for great Calgary IT support, look no further than your team at XCEL.  We are your local Calgary IT team.  We help business with the best IT services throughout Calgary and area.

It is not just about SEO anymore, it’s about WPO – or Web Positioning Optimization too. With updates to the Google algorithm like Panda and Mayday and integration of social media metrics as part of the search engine rank factors, we can clearly see that web marketing is not and should not be limited to SEO only.

Well, there is nothing wrong with putting a lot of effort into getting your website noticed by Google, Yahoo or Bing, but your website is just one tool among many. Remember, your goal is to get your brand and your company noticed and you should be using tools other than a website too. And they can even be offline activities!

So, here are 5 things to pay attention to in your web strategy:

1. Your Website. Just because you have a Facebook Page or a Blog Page or a Google+ profile doesn’t mean a website is not necessary. Your website is one place that you control what you look like, what you say and how you put your brand; it’s the hub for the rest of your Internet activity.

2. Your Content. Your content should be fresh, relevant and should NOT be copied. In case you didn’t know, “duplicate content” is penalized. And why should you be copying someone else’s content when you have your own information to share with your audience? Not only does sharing info help you engage with people, it also positions yourself as an ‘expert’.  An excellent idea would be to add a blog to your company website; it lets you add content on an ongoing basis.

3. Your Profiles. Yes, social media is indeed important for engaging with your entire world (which includes your customers, your vendors, your peers, your associates). Have a profile as both an individual and as a company? That’s great, as long as you follow the rules, that is. We’ve heard that some companies had added profiles on Google+ only to have them deleted later because Google+ does not allow for company profiles. And if you’ve committed the mistake of creating personal profiles on Facebook instead of creating a business page, create a business page ASAP.  Business pages are picked up by the search engines but personal profiles are not. And people can’t possibly be “friends” with a business. They sure can “Like” it, though.

4. Your People. The customers of your company are people and so are the people who run it. The days of corporate anonymity are long gone; it’s the age where having the head of the company recognizable and accountable makes a business succeed.

5. Your Engagement. Broadcasting your message isn’t enough. A company should interact and ‘engage’ with its customer, receiving comments or complains, such as. Do you have a mechanism to catch that information?

Need help figuring all this out for your Calgary business?  XCEL Professional Services specializes in helping Calgary business leverage technology each day. Call us today and learn more about our Calgary IT consulting services.

If you do, think again…they just changed their privacy statement. Read the fine print before you use any online service.

Groupon recently updated its ToS and privacy statement basically focusing on new ways in which the company intends to collect and share consumer data. There are two changes that are must not be overlooked.

First off, Groupon will now track users’ locations when they opt-in for Groupon Now. The company will now track user location data via the Groupon mobile app and share it with many other parties. Secondly, the term “personal information” has been redefined from Groupon’s perspective and it is going to change how it shares this information. To put it in other words, the company plans to collect more of your data and share it with more sources.

This leaves us wondering, “Is Groupon still a daily deals site at its core or has it changed into something else?” And it looks like we are not alone because many believe that he world’s fastest growing company, as Forbes calls it, is no longer a daily deals site but an advertising and marketing firm. See how it is trying its best to gather user data (which is very typical of marketing firms) and we can’t help but agree that Groupon being a daily deals site is helping it maximize its ability to collect user data. As for the merchants, they aren’t in for the profit; they are just here for plain advertising. Of course, there are chances of losing money but who said advertising is free of cost?

Similarly, Topix CEO Chris Tolles also seems to be in agreement with us as he said recently that Groupon is all about advertising and called its business model from a merchant’s view as “buying marketing opportunities on credit”. Rocky Agrawal who wrote a series of guest posts on TechCrunch about Groupon, calling it a “loan shark” is reinforcing the credit aspect while the marketing aspect is reinforced by ReadWriteWeb, which described the company as “fundamentally a marketing firm.”

All of this is making the complaints department at the Chicago company quite busy and it is not that LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and others have achieved valuations just as ludicrous as Groupon. But with the company having red ink all over it and its controversial business model, almost anyone can predict that this daily deals space, which is one of the most overly saturated in the tech world, is headed for collapseville. And if that does happen, all hell is going to break loose.

Groupon might still be able to make things work out though. However, with its IPO looming, we can’t help but wonder how much more stable would things be if CEO Andrew Mason had accepted Google’s generous $6 billion acquisition bid.

You have probably been leaving virtualization to the bigger enterprises for years but it is time you take a look at the benefits of server virtualization as a way to help your Calgary business.  There are many options out there.  What is right for your business?  VMWare or Microsoft Hyper-V, this is where you need our support services as your trusted Calgary IT support specialists to help.

Waiting for the perfect virtualization option for your business is going to do you no good. Plus, now that the benefits of virtualization are in reach for organizations big and small, there is no reason why your small and medium sized business should not get on the virtualization bandwagon. Well, there are things every SMB must examine before taking on any option.

So, here are five things you should know about virtualization:

• The benefits of virtualization are bigger for SMBs: Virtual servers bring about a host of benefits. Efficient use of resources, lower maintenance costs, faster server deployment, increased agility and higher availability; you name it. Significant data loss resulting from lack of availability will no longer trouble you either as virtualization mitigates this risk. With virtualization, you will also be able to witness lower maintenance expenses and total cost of ownership (TCO) of IT infrastructures. Virtualization also decreases and eliminates planned and unplanned downtime, respectively, since a virtualized infrastructure can move workloads from one host to another. And most important of all, virtualization improves the end-user experience, enabling IT to migrate virtual servers and desktops between physical platforms without affecting user productivity.
• SMBs face unique challenges not seen in larger enterprises: Storage is the first obstacle; virtual servers and virtual desktops can freely move between different hardware platforms only after having common access to shared storage to transfer the running state of workloads between physical servers. You can get over this obstacle with the help of direct-attached disks with storage area networks (SANs) that interconnect to multiple servers. You should also keep in mind that the built-in safety nets against bottlenecks available in enterprise environments are not as likely to be present in smaller environments. While storage disruptions and slowdowns in physical servers are isolated only to a single server or a single application, a virtualized environment complicates the issue. Any single points of failure in a centralized SAN spread across the entire set of interconnected servers and potentially hundreds of virtual servers and thousands of desktops. That is why you must seek out virtualization platforms that deliver a safety net to avoid this problem.
• Beware of unanticipated deployment costs: Unless you like unpleasant surprises, you ought to ask questions prior to deployment about the cost of project management, shared storage infrastructure development, higher availability and the performance requirements of centralized operations.
• Initial low-end equipment investments will cost you more in the long run: If you are thinking of adopting  equipment with superficially low price points, you must know that these tools lead to higher TCO, since they create a complex infrastructure that is eventually too difficult to manage and unable to scale.  So, instead of going for deceptively inexpensive modular options, you should seek out complete solutions tailored for your needs.
• You don’t have to get rid of existing technology: Removing your existing hardware and making unnecessary investments in new machines is not the right thing to do. Instead deploy a virtualization solution that repurposes the hardware you already have. Choose virtualization software that enables construction of virtual SANs using internal disks in each physical server thus enabling you to turn a pair of existing servers into a dedicated, highly available and high-performance SAN.  Such options should also reduce the risk of data loss with continuous real-time replication.

With SMB-specific virtualization platforms now on the market, you can select technology that delivers easy maintenance, affordable implementation and the scalability you seek. And remember, virtualization should simplify your environment, not complicate it.  Speak with our team at XCEL Professional Services, your Calgary IT Consulting professionals.  We work with Calgary business each day and help them understand the benefits of server virtualization as a way to reduce risk, increase efficiencies and cut IT support costs.

Do you know what is the ultimate way (at least for now!) to harness technology for your business, keep up with marketing trends, and reach your customers in new and interesting ways? QR codes (short for quick response code)! You’ve probably already seen them; the bar-code like images that are popping up everywhere from flyers to magazines, utility bills, invoices, TV commercials, product tags and where not!

So, how do QR codes work? These when scanned with a smartphone, redirect consumers to online marketing content! It is as simple (and equally amazing) as that. And when it comes to reading QR codes with Android smartphones, QR Droid, a free app, is the best. It lets you read QR codes you see on marketing materials. Likewise, the app also works for sharing contacts with another Android phone and for creating new QR codes to use in your business! Plus, QR codes are also great for gauging the effectiveness of your advertising efforts; you can simply use web analytics to measure the amount of traffic. No need to set up a special phone number or custom URL to capture the data.

You can use QR codes to link your customers with videos, event details, special offers/coupons, personalized account information, product instructions and much more! So, what are you waiting for? Get on the QR code bandwagon and get going.

Would you like to learn more about how you can add QR Codes in your business? Talk to your team at XCEL Professional Services today to learn more about QR codes in business.

There are many milestones for an Information Technology (IT) specialist to take in order to be recognized as an IT professional and consultant. XCEL is proud to announce that John Azevedo has successfully completed one of those major milestones after achieving his MCITP Certification.

Goals are intended to be a stepping stone towards achievement. Reaching goals provide hope for the future that you can reach that goal and then take it one step further towards another goal.

John Azevedo, an IT Analyst since October of 2009 for XCEL, had a goal — that of achieving his Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) Certification — a goal that is not easy to do, by any means.

The Microsoft MCITP certification helps prove that an individual has a wide-ranging set of skills necessary to perform a particular job role in the IT world. Using the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) which John had already attained as a building block, the MCITP certification builds on that technical knowledge and expertise that he gained when he went through that first certification.

“Earning the MCITP gives me a feeling of self-satisfaction that I have gone after a goal that will not only help me and my career, but also directly impact the confidence that our clients will gain in knowing that I have the expertise needed to work on their networks and with their equipment. They can rest assured that I’m fully capable in deploying, supporting, and optimizing IT infrastructures and that my design and technology decisions will be sound,” John relayed to us during our interview.

XCEL believes in providing clients with superior customer service and the technical expertise to realize and develop technology goals. As such, XCEL is careful to only hire senior level IT analysts. Doing so ensures that clients will not be billed unnecessarily for time spent analyzing a complex issue. When an XCEL Analyst arrives onsite, clients can be assured that their issue will be resolved quickly and efficiently.

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About the Company: XCEL Professional Services is a Calgary-based IT Service Provider established in 2009. With a focus on IT Security for the SMB Market, XCEL has certified analysts on staff who care about the security and efficient operation of client networks. XCEL currently serves over 20 small to mid-sized businesses in the Calgary area, Saskatchewan, Central Alberta, British Columbia, and North Africa. Core services are IT Security, IT Projects (design, management, implementation, migration), and Managed IT Services (day-to-day computer and network support and maintenance).

Do you have questions about XCEL? Feel free to email us at info@xpsl.ca.

Feel free to send Tim a welcome email at twilson@xpsl.ca.

Terry has spent many years in the IT field, and brings with him a strong focus on customer service and insight on working with IT in a variety of industries.  We look forward to Terry’s future contributions.

Feel free to send Terry a welcome email at tingram@xpsl.ca.

Feel free to send Luis a welcome email at lpalacios@xpsl.ca.

Feel free to send Ryan a welcome email at rbarker@xpsl.ca.

XCEL Professional Services is proud to be a sponsor of Calgary Helps Chile and has donated the website and further time and services to aid in the fundraising event being a success.

For more information on Calgary Helps Chile please visit www.calgaryhelpschile.com

For more information on Lenovo, visit http://www.lenovo.com.

What this means to your business is that when it comes to protecting your network from todays advanced viruses and malwares, XCEL knows the #1 Anti-Virus product thoroughly.  We can have Kaspersky Anti-Virus implemented in the most appropriate manner to ensure the threat of network downtime due to virus is mitigated.

Upon contacting an analyst, clients can now visit our Remote Support page and input the PIN code generated by their analyst to establish a remote support session.

Feel free to send John a welcome email at jazevedo@xpsl.ca.

For more information on Kaspersky, visit www.kaspersky.com.

For more information on SonicWALL visit www.sonicwall.com.

For more information on Dell, visit www.dell.ca.

For more information on Microsoft, visit http://www.microsoft.ca.

How many times have you asked for something in a business relationship and not received it — until you entered into a negotiation? What’s a negotiation you ask. Let’s take a look at what a business negotiation is, and then we’ll look at 10 lessons on how to make it work.

Let’s think of a negotiation this way. Negotiation is the give and take between two people that wish to come to an equitable agreement about something. A negotiation can occur in any wake of life — divorces, marriages, business, non-profits, friends, etc. And, you each share the responsibility for determining whether or not the negotiation is successful. So let’s check into what the 10 lessons are that I mentioned to ensure your business negotiation works.

1.          Be prepared and know what you both want

How much simpler could that sound? Easy, huh? Not so fast. It’s a lot harder to implement than you think. First you have to know what you want. Get out your pen and paper or your favorite word processor and starting jotting those “wants” down. There’s nothing worse than getting to a meeting of any type and not knowing what it is you want.

The next step is to know what the other party wants. Yeah, right. Am I supposed to crawl into their head and pick their brain; I don’t think so. You might have to ask ahead of time so you can use counteraction tactics.

2.          Patience is a blessing

Being too much of an eager beaver is not necessarily going to put you in the best light; instead making you look like an amateur. The other party puts up an offer. You would be better off to say something like “I’ll have to think on that. Let me get back to you on that.” Sometimes silence can be your greatest tool as they may come back with an even better offer thinking they were way out of line.

3.          Know your limits

What is your bottom line that you will accept? Don’t get roped into accepting something that you could kick yourself in the rear for later.

4.          Know when to concede and when not to

This is similar to knowing your limits. Another take on this is know what hill you want to die on. Take the time ahead of time to decide at what point you won’t go any further in making concessions.

5.          For every want they have, provide a benefit

In order for your to be able to anticipate that someone will give you what you want, you are going to need to provide what is in it for them. What are the benefits to them should they give you what you want, hmmm?

6.          Plan for win-win opportunities

 Otherwise, you could find yourself in a no-win consequence. An ideal negotiation will take the interests of both parties into account and ensure that both can walk away with good feels about the deal.

7.          Flexibility is okay

 Along with knowing your bottom line is allowing for a little flexibility — a middle ground where you can both meet and agree.

8.          Be careful to not weaken your value too much

Concessions on your side of the negotiations without a give/take from the other side, can damage your reputation and credibility if you relinquish all value from your side and make you a target in any future negotiations as word gets around that you are weak.  Don’t ever do anything just because they request it.

9.          Stand up for what you believe is right

If you’ve made a good proposal and you believe it is fair for both parties, then stand on your own to feet and don’t back down. Do some probing as to why the other side finds exception with it and then provide clarification as to why it is workable.

10.          Don’t leave things to chance; document as soon as possible

Once you both leave the negotiation table, do not pass go. Immediately go type up on your computer what transpired during the negotiations or write it out long hand. Then make sure you get the other individual’s sign off on it, because you know what? Whatever happens today never looks the same tomorrow. Don’t trust even one day to memory. 

As July 1, 2011, enters into the beginning of a brand new month, so does Canada Day (French: Fête du Canada), make an arrival as a National holiday. Once upon a former time, this festive and highly celebrated day was known as Dominion Day (French: Le Jour de la Confédération), and is now recognized as the national day of Canada, a federal statutory holiday.

So why is Canada Day so vital to the culture of the Canadian residents? To them, Canada Day couldn’t be more important than remembering that all-important date of July 1, 1867 when the British North America Act, or also known as the Constitution Act of 1867, was passed. That critical piece of enactment is said to be when three British colonies were united into one country — CANADA.

The title of this blog post couldn’t be more suited as millions of Canadians across Canada and internationally get ready to celebrate their beloved country’s birthday with outdoor public events with parades, carnivals, festivals, barbecues, air and maritime shows, fireworks, and free musical concerts. This day is also well-known for giving individuals a chance to step up to the plate and become citizens of the country they so love.

It’s possible that Queen Elizabeth II, the sovereign monarch of 16 independent sovereign states including Canada, may make a special appearance as she did in 2010. For sure, Canadians will have a special treat as Prince William and Princess Catherine make a special appearance by attending a citizenship ceremony and a parade on Parliament Hill, the public grounds of Canada’s parliament buildings, as they swing through North America on their way to California.

As with most holidays in North America, Dominion Day didn’t keep its original name becoming as it is known today as Canada Day on 27 October 1982. Would you believe that for a span of 20 years during the 1960s – 1980s, the Miss Dominion of Canada beauty pageant was help in Niagara Falls. Just who was going to be the next lucky lady to represent Canada during the famous international pageants of Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss International and Queen of the Pacific, hmmm???

Canada residents have a lot to be thankful and happy for on their country’s birthday. The British Parliament did not want to relinquish complete control of Canada; however, such was to be the case as Canada finally succeeded in becoming their own separate sovereign state with the joining of the British North American colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec. While they are still under the rule of a monarch, it was a long, hard fight for the pioneers of Canada – but they did it!

Happy Birthday, Canada!

Reduce malware entry points by managing Internet content delivery, and spam email messages.

Social networking, and online amenities have forced businesses to control the content staff access on the Internet to maintain productivity, and reduce the potential for inbound malware.

New security threats are discovered daily which put the safety of your business and data at risk.

With Vulnerability Management, you can rest assured that XCEL is scanning for areas that may leave your network vulnerable, and working expediently to patch them on a proactive basis – mitigating the risk of exposing your most valuable resources.

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We all know what it’s like to open our email inbox on Monday morning to find a billion annoying spam emails multiplying by the minute!

Did you know that in 2010 alone there have been 107 trillion emails sent? Over 89.1% of these emails, which account for 95 trillion messages, were spam. Because email has increasingly become one of the most common forms of contact today, it can be inferred that spammers would begin to use this technology at an increasing rate as well. Because of these stats, it is essential that corporate records and data are kept under the highest, maximized security.

Many of us deal with these messages on an annoyingly large scale but are not aware of the options available to handle it. Numerous business professionals choose to ignore spam and simply push the delete button opposed to finding a solution for the root of the problem.

Our analysts at XCEL Professional Services ensure that your network Security needs are met!  If you are like thousands of other professionals who deal with this problem, call us today to discuss your email security and spam filtering needs.

High-profile users of RSA Security’s SecurID tokens have been under attacks lately. Lockheed Martin, a major U.S. government defense contractor, was attacked in March. However, it has been reported that the attack was thwarted and RSA officials have not confirmed what the attackers were able to extract during the intrusion yet. Security experts, nevertheless, speculated that the attackers might have gained the cryptographic seeds used in the SecurID tokens. But this should, in no way, be taken as a threat by other businesses using the same tokens, says RSA.

In an open letter posted by the company on its website on Monday, RSA Executive Chairman Art Coviello reassured the customers that the tokens were secure and businesses need not take the attacks as threats. The company has speculated that the attacks were aimed only at defense contractors and other customers in the military-industrial complex which should keep other businesses out of the target group. Still confident that the steps it is recommending to customers are valid, the chairman has further mentioned in the letter that the attempt to compromise Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors does not change any of that. Nonetheless, the company is willing to replace SecurID tokens for its corporate customers with “concentrated user bases typically focused on protecting intellectual property and corporate networks.” How many of the company’s customers will opt for the replacement is something that we are not sure about, but what’s for sure is that for a company with a user base of tens of millions of people, even if a small fraction does choose replacement, it will be very costly for the company.

The company has also been recommending security strategies since the breach which it is offering to help its customers with.

XCEL is an authorized reseller of AuthAnvil which is a leading two-factor authentication provider geared to the SMB Market. Although others have had some difficulty with RSA security, we can assure our customers that AuthAnvil has not had these same issues. Contact us today for more information on how two-factor authentication with AuthAnvil can secure your network.

We are living in an age where almost everything is done digitally, and this applies to the way we backup and store crucial business information.

Thanks to this digital approach to data storage, we no longer have to rely on files and folders to keep our valuable information safe. But just because all our data is nicely tucked up in some digital storage device does not mean they won’t be lost. Should the unforeseen occur, your electronic records can vanish into the depths of cyberspace, never to see the light of day ever again.

So, in order to save thousands (or even millions) of dollars and to save yourself free from the headaches should a data loss occur, you must have a robust and effective backup in place, a backup that focuses on business continuity versus just making sure you have a copy of your data.  This is where your skilled Calgary IT support team can serve you.  Our solutions are focused on making sure your business can continue whenever the smallest data loss occurs or when a disaster strikes.

Performing regular backups of your data (and testing the backup) is one of the only ways you can be confident with your business data integrity.

But again, just backing up your data regularly is not enough. You need to make sure your restore system performs smoothly and efficiently when the time comes, or else your data backups will have no significance whatsoever.

Let’s say, you just faced a major data loss. You have backed up all your data for this unfortunate event, but you haven’t really tested your restore system. So, how can you be assured that all your data will be retrieved? Or worse, how can you be sure of the fact that your restore system is working smoothly and efficiently if you have never tested it? Thus, the only way out of this is to back up your data regularly AND test your restore system for flaws beforehand and repair them.

Studies have shown that many companies do back up their data but don’t conduct tests for data restoration. Don’t be one of them.  Get us involved.  Our Calgary business continuity packages and services are here to make sure your business is protected.

Call us today.

This month many customers of Honda Canada received letters from the company stating that their personal information such as their names, addresses and Vehicle Identification Numbers had been lost to hackers.

Apologizing for their inability to protect customer information, the company further stated that the intrusion which had occurred in March, did not involve the loss of information typically used for identity theft like birth dates, telephone numbers, email addresses, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, driver’s license numbers, social insurance numbers, dollar amounts of Honda Financial Services financing or payments.

However, a few days later, they added a “and in a small number of cases, Honda Financial Services (“HFS”) account numbers” to the statement on their website. The intrusion was discovered when the company found an unusual volume of usage in their myHonda and myAcura websites. The company has thus warned customers to watch carefully for fraud or contact from parties claiming to be related to Honda or Honda Finance. It’s a good thing the company notified the affected customers but there is one question I just can’t help but ask.

Why did the company keep the affected customers in the dark for two whole months?

Okay, the company’s claim that it: “needed to assess the gravity of the situation and determine exactly what data may have been stolen,” sounds quite reasonable, but still it has not been as forthright as it claims to be. The addition to this statement with: “and in a small number of cases, Honda Financial Services (“HFS”) account numbers” statement proves this. So, 283,000 record losses and two months after the breach, the company is facing a lawsuit worth $200 million for failure to protect personal and confidential information and failure to notify customers in “a reasonable amount of time.”

It is believed that the stolen data was left behind after a mailing campaign in 2009 and not properly deleted. So, what does this teach us? To take the appropriate steps to secure our customers’ data and spare ourselves all the trouble and even lawsuits.

Are you concerned about the security of your client information?  XCEL Professional Services specializes in making sure all your important business data and customer records are as secure as possible.  Give us a call today and talk with us about a review of your business security needs.

If it isn’t right for the US Government, is Google right for your business?

Google and Microsoft are in the thick of a serious battle for the “cloud”, just look in any major airport around the country and you see Microsoft’s efforts of creating awareness around their entire cloud offerings from email services, document storage and even customer relationship management solutions.

What is going on in the Google camp? There are some recent developments reported by Channelnomics revealing the Google cloud is losing ground due to the lack of Federal Information Security Management Act certification for its cloud productivity suite – Google Apps for Government.

Already a contract holder for the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and a winner for the contract to provide email to 15,000 employees at the General Services Administration, Google has been marketing its Google Apps for Government as FISMA certified but it apparently is not.

To put the situation in other words, it does have a FISMA certification for another version of the same service but it hasn’t exactly certified Google Apps for Government. Speaking in defense of the allegations, David Mihalchik, overseer of Google’s government software initiatives, said that the service is the same system with enhanced security controls and that they have not mislead their court and customers.

Microsoft’s take on the issue seems to be negative with Microsoft deputy general counsel David Howard’s blog post suggesting that Google, in fact, has been misleading the court with its Google Apps for Government. But Microsoft is not clean on this cloud front either as it too has been accused of influencing officials to insert their brand name in bid specifications for the Interior Department.

Initially, the Department of the Interior’s $59 million email service contract had been awarded to Microsoft for its BPOS service but Google and its reseller partner, Onix Networking, stepped in to challenge the award claiming that the bidding was specially designed to exclude non-Microsoft products. The original bid called for Microsoft products to fulfill Interior’s cloud email requirements for compatibility and security reasons. However, we can’t blame the Interior Department for being too cautious as the federal courts ordered the entire department disconnected from the Internet owing to the plethora of security problems found in their network.

The courts did rule the case in favor of Google in the beginning but Google’s challenge backfired as the case also brought the FISMA certification issue into light. So, while Google takes its time to come out with a clearer explanation for the issue, solution providers and vendors should keep a watchful eye on the outcome of this case as this is expected to set new cloud competition standards.

Does all this cloud chatter leave you scratching your head?  Not to worry, your team at XCEL Professional Service is here to address any cloud questions you may have.  Call us today.

Leading IT support Information Technology (IT) executive stands in  as one of several to join together as one unified industry expert panel at the Western Academy Conference held on May 25.

It was a big day when Information Technology (IT) experts sat down as part of an Industry Experts Panel at the “Futures in IT:  Collaboration” at the Western Academy Conference that was held on the 25th of May.

XCEL Professional Services was privileged to sit in on the industry experts panel and be part of the Information Communication Technology Council of Canada, CISCO, CompTIA, SAIT, partnership launch. XCEL is an IT Professional Services company which provides services for the Calgary business market. Along with IT Professional Services, they perform proactive day-to-day IT support and maintenance. XCEL is unique in that the company is one of the best at understanding the business needs of clients, and advising them on how to best leverage technology to achieve their vision.

The key note speaker was Mr. Clark Ferguson. Having an extensive background in the IT Technology industry as well as the educational landscape at the University of Lethbridge as CIO, he chose “What is the Intersection between Education, Business and Industry and Industry and Future Partnerships to create a 21st Century Learning Society?” as his topic to speak on. During the working lunch, XCEL and the other panel members listened to a special speaker as the discussion centered on emerging immersive technologies and how they will transform our world.

The conference provided detailed resource and teaching strategy’s workshops facilitated by SAIT instructors, CISCO, CompTIA and high school teachers. Guest speakers provided input on dual credit programs, technical labs for college instructors and high school teachers. Denise Woods of CompTIA was the moderator for the aforementioned industry experts from the Calgary area.

Colin Knox, President of XCEL explained in a recent discussion, “XCEL is a business that is always looking to give back to the community.  Sharing information with post-secondary institutions about the changing landscape of technology, which will better prepare new graduates as they enter the workforce, is truly rewarding to us.“