Hi, I hope you are continuing to find this weekly newsletter interesting and entertaining. Today I want to talk to you about viruses and malware. Many agents think that if they have virus protection that they are protected. I've put together some additional steps that you should use to protect yourself:

Of course use anti-virus software. Install anti-virus software on all of your desktops and servers, and ensure they are kept up-to-date. 

Set your filtering - Make sure you have an email gateway that stops a virus before it gets to your desktop. This is a good reason to outsource your email to Gmail or Appriver.

Protect the gateway and remote users with firewalls. Computers connected to the outside world should be properly protected from Internet threats via firewalls. Laptops and remote home workers should be included; they will also need firewall protection and might not be able to take advantage of a central firewall inside your business.

Stay up-to-date with software patches. Microsoft gives you the capability to automatically update your Internet Explorer or Windows Software to protect against threats that your virus software may miss.

Back up your data regularly - Make regular backups of important work and data, and check that the backups were successful. You should also find a safe place to store your backups, perhaps even off-site in case of fire.

Introduce an anti-virus policy - Produce a policy for safe computing and distribute it to all staff. Make sure every employee has read and understood the policy, and that they know who to speak to, if they have any questions. Such a policy could include:

• A ban on downloading executables and documents directly from the Internet. 
• A ban on running unsolicited executables/documents/spreadsheets within the organization. 
• A ban on playing computer games or using screensavers which did not come with the operating system. 
• An IT checking and approval system for executables that arrive via email from the outside world.

Lookeen for Outlook

Of all the applications I use the one you would find me in most is Microsoft Outlook. I keep all of my emails; I never delete one because I figure it's easier to buy more disk storage than find an email I deleted. The problem is that finding those emails or attachments can be very difficult. The search button provided in Outlook is slow and doesn't allow me to search within attachments.

Enter Lookeen. This software indexes all of my mail and allows me to search for anything within my calendar, attachments, emails sent, deleted, or received. I've used other Outlook add-ons like Xobni but I’ve found them to be a hog of resources. Try out Lookeen for 14 days. I've found it to be lightning quick with searches. It takes some time initially to index your email but after that it works great with no slowdown in performance.

More Cupcakes and iPads

We had a lot of fun at the Los Angeles I-Day in Universal City. If you missed us there you missed out on some great cupcakes and a chance to win an iPad. But don't worry, you have another chance. We will be extending our iPad giveaway to May 5th when we will be at the BIG Banner Fair in Ontario, California. Come visit us to enter or we will run another remote entry before the show.

Backup Audit

Are you worried that you are not getting a good backup? Contact us here to get your free backup inspection. And if you are having any computer issues you would like to talk about feel free to contact me.