Remote Working (Virtual Private Networks VPN)

By Shakeel Rashid, Technical Services Engineer of Supreme Systems. For more information on our products and services please contact me on 0845 009 5430 or alternatively email me on shakeel.rashid@supremesystems.co.uk

What is Remote Working ?

Picture this scenario...you just got home from a busy day at the office,your manager calls
and asks for the new design ideas for the company ’s business card.You realise that you left
the designs at work and forgot to email them to him...here comes the clever bit...you open
your laptop and run a software which provides remote working support,in this case we ’ll
use Remote Desktop Connection which comes standard with the Windows line of operating
systems:

What you would normally do now is type in the IP address of the computer you want to connect to, your username and password and the domain to which your computer belongs i.e. just think of it as different departments within the same company so for example we may have Marketing or Sales or Research & Development. In this case we have an IP address of the server we want to connect to, a username, a password and the domain that my computer belongs to (in this case we have KLEENPOINT).

Once we have logged in just think of it as if you are sitting at your desk at work! You have access to all your files at work while you are at home!

How it Works

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) or Remote Working basically offers you a secure communications link over a public network to your organisations network. A VPN works by using the public internet to create ‘tunnels’ to send data through. The sending end encrypts data which is to be sent through the tunnel and decrypts that data at the receiving end. How does the receiving end know that the data coming through is secure you’re asking? Well, that’s simple; the receiving end knows when dodgy data has come through when the data is not encrypted. A hacker cannot even attempt to encrypt that data because only the sender and receiver know the method by which the data has been encrypted. This gets even more secure when the sending and receiving IP addresses are encrypted.

Think of encryption by reading the following scenario, you will hopefully understand:

Have you seen the film ‘Matrix’? If so, remember those green numbers and weird letters running down the screen? That in essence is data which has been encrypted. If you watch carefully Neo and a few other people know what those letters mean, why? Because they have the encryption key. In parts of the film they say ‘I see a blonde or a brunette’ (referring to women) when I look at these codes. We don’t know what these symbols mean because we don’t have that encryption key, just like unwanted data which might slip into the tunnel when you have a VPN connection setup.

Who are the Users of Remote Working?

The people who generally tend to use this technology are those people who carry out all their work in the field or those people who tend to work from home. For example a company called ABC windows Ltd might have three people who go to different parts of the city or even the country to sell windows to potential customers. These people would generally at the end of the working day or week upload all their data onto the companies’ server which is based at head office or even retrieve any data which is required, for example an updated contract which needs to given to new customers.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Remote Working

There are several advantages to using remote working. The first and most obvious being that you can work from home, eliminating the need to travel long distances to get to your office. Another beneficial factor is that it also dramatically reduces long distance call charges. This is because you are essentially using the internet to connect to your computer at the office. Even when it comes to supporting the remote working (VPN) connections, it is considerably cheaper because companies tend to outsource the supporting side of things to a third party company who specialise in this field. If a company has two offices then they will require a single dedicated line to connect the two offices together. This may seem reasonable at first but when the company starts growing in size then this becomes a problem. This is because dedicated lines are very expensive to maintain. This is where remote working and VPN’s come in. This technology avoids this scalability problem because in essence all you will be doing is tapping into the public internet and finding a route to your destination.

For every advantage there are unfortunately disadvantages. Engineers who will deploy the technology require a high level knowledge of network security and high level skill in analysis and troubleshooting in remote working. When a problem arises in a remote working environment, the engineers must keep their cool and stay focused as you may never know on the face where the problem is, whether it is at the server or the user end. Another potential disadvantage is that the traffic on the internet is hard or even impossible to predict, therefore users will most definitely get frustrated with the connection. However, the security which is provided in remote working usually outweighs the frustration with connection problems.

http://www.supremesystems.co.uk/

PC Health Checks - Top Ten Tips

By Angela Hart, Client Services Manager, Supreme Systems. You can contact Angela by email on angela.hart@supremesystems.co.uk or 0121 236 0065

Like a car that needs regular servicing to ensure it is in tip top condition, your PCs also require regular attention and “health checks” I have listed what I consider the top ten ways you can make your PCs perform better. Some of these tips you can perform quite easily yourself, others you may need to use professional like Supreme Systems (you knew there had to be a catch right?) to make sure you do not cause any damage to your PCs.

1. Delete all temporary files including internet cached files and cookies

For Internet Explorer 5 and above, you can follow these directions to delete all temp files and cookies.

1) Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools

2) Click on Internet Options

3) On the General Tab, in the middle of the screen, click on Delete Files

4) You may also want to check the box "Delete all offline content"

5) Click on OK and wait for the hourglass icon to stop after it deletes the temporary internet files
6) You can now click on Delete Cookies and click OK to delete cookies that websites have placed on your hard drive.

To clear the history log:

1) Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools

2) Click on Internet Options

3) On the General Tab, in the middle of the screen, click on Clear History

4) Click OK

To clean up other temporary files

1) Click Start, Programs (or All Programs), Accessories, Systems Tools, Disk Cleanup

2) Choose the correct drive usually C:\

3) Check the boxes in the list and delete the files

2. Remove unused programs from you control panel

The easiest way I have found to simply remove unwanted programs is simply:

1. Go to Start Control Panel and select Add Or Remove Programs (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Remove any software program with the Add Or Remove Programs utility under Control Panel.

1. Scroll down the list of the installed programs until you reach the program you want to uninstall. Select it and click the Change/Remove button. This will uninstall the program. You can install multiple programs using this option.

You can also use the disk clean up option outlined in top tip 1.

3. Remove old entries from windows registry

Now this is one of those tricky situations I mentioned earlier that you may need an expert to do for you as the registry is one of the most important areas of your computer. You can do this yourself manually but a small mistake could create huge problems for your PC. If you are a bit of a maverick and would like to try removing entries yourself, Microsoft has some great tips on how to do this.

I would recommend using Registry cleaners which the job automatically without any input from yourself. A good cleaner, one that I can recommend is RegCure (http://www.regcure.com/). You can get this for as little as £15 per licence and it works a treat. If you do not want to pay the £15, you can get a free scan which lists the Registry errors found and you could go and find these yourself but for £15 why bother?

If you have a good managed services provider such as Supreme Systems (hey…I am Sales Manager, the selling thing is in the blood) you should get this free as part of the service they provide. We conduct weekly Reg scans on behalf of our clients which are done each Friday between 12 – 1. The scans are done remotely and has little or no effect on our clients work day.

4. Clean out your Startup folder

Some programs will install themselves in your Windows Startup folder, which makes them run each time your system boots up. All you have to do is delete the menu shortcut, and they'll stop loading when Windows starts up. The programs will still remain installed on your system - they just won't run until you run them.

The easiest way to disable your startup programs is to use the MSCONFIG utility. Simply click on the Start menu and go to “Start/Run” and type msconfig” to access the utility.

Click on the ’startup’ tag to see all of the programs that run each time you start your computer. By examining their filenames and directories, you should be able to determine whether the program is necessary or not.

To be safe, don’t disable any program that you’re not sure about. Also be aware that several viruses, worms, and malware disguise themselves as legitimate Windows system file names.

Your next step is to go to the Start menu and click on Programs and then on Startup. This is the directory used by Windows XP to launch application shortcuts on boot-up. If you remove the shortcuts from this directory, the programs will not load on startup. Windows does not place critical files in this directory so there is much less chance of erasing an important file.

To the lay person this may seem pretty daunting. You may need the assistance of a well heeled IT expert for this.

5. Defrag your hard drive

Defrag (a new word I learnt only last week and have since used constantly – I like how it sounds and it is really a cool thing to do for your PC) is short for Defragment (another cool word).

One of the most important things you can do to speed up your PC is to defragment the hard drive. Over time, the data on your hard drive gets scattered. Disk fragmentation leads to slower PC performance, PC crashes, and slow startup and shutdown. Defragmenting your hard drive puts your data back into its proper place.

This makes it easier for Windows to access the data it needs to execute programs, thus speeding up your computer.

To Defrag your hard drive simply open the Run Dialog Box. In the Run dialog box, type dfrg.msc and click OK.

You can also access the Disk Defragmenter by clicking on the Windows Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter.
Couldn’t be easier!

6. Apply Windows Updates

I know this can be a pain (especially as in most cases you need to restart your PC for any change to take effect) but they are a necessary evil I am afraid. If you run Windows and you use the Internet you MUST stay up to date with the system patches that come out in response to the security exploits that are discovered on a weekly basis. Failure to update your system is an open invite to hackers who would like nothing more than to flood your computer with Malware designed to cause the most havoc!

You should get periodic prompts from your system asking you to scan for updates and do always say yes (I know it is a hassle but it really does work). You do not have to restart your computer immediately, you can opt to restart your PC later.

You can stay informed of the latest Windows Updates at: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

7. Scan for Viruses & Check for Spyware and Adware

Viruses really are a nuisance and can bring your performance to a grinding halt. Running a regularly scheduled anti-virus program is one of the best ways to avoid problems and keep your computer running at optimum performance.

Spyware is software that allows companies to monitor what websites you visit. Some even allow the creator to access your computer. Adware is software that displays advertisements. Both of these use system resources and slow down your computer. Running a regularly scheduled anti-spyware and anti-adware program can help speed up you computer immensely.

8. Run Scan Disk

Windows provides a utility called scandisk. This program will fix errors caused by improper shut-downs, viruses, and other problems. Correcting these errors will help improve your system performance.

To run Scandisk, you first need to Open the Run Dialog Box. In the Run dialog box, type sfc /scannow and click OK.
Windows will now scan your hard disk for any problems in your system files.

9. Flush event logs

This is one for the experts I am afraid. Event logs simply record enables an application to publish, access, and process events. Event logs are set to a maximum size that determines how many entries each log can contain. When an event log is full, it will either stop recording entries or begin overwriting the oldest entries with new entries, depending on the log's settings in the Windows Event Viewer. In either case, you can clear the log of its existing entries to free the log and allow it to start recording events again. You must have Administrator rights to the computer on which the log resides in order to clear entries.

By default, the Application, System, and Security logs are set to a default maximum size of 4992 K. Custom logs are set to a default maximum of 512 K.

To clear an event log's contents from Server Explorer

1. Open Server Explorer, and then expand the node for the server on which the event log you want to clear resides.

2. Expand the Event Logs node. You will see a list of the three main event logs — Application, Security, and System.

3. Right-click the log node you want to clear, and then click Clear Event Log.

4. Click Yes when prompted to confirm the deletion.

You can also use the Windows Event Viewer to free up space on a log that has become full. You can set the log to overwrite existing events, you can write log entries to an external file, or you can increase the maximum size of the log. You cannot, however, remove only some of the entries in a log; when you clear a log, you remove all of its contents.

10. (Drum roll please!) Improve Swapfile (a.k.a. Pagefile) Performance

If you have more than 256MB of RAM this tweak will considerably improve your performance. It basically makes sure that your PC uses every last drop of memory (faster than swap file) before it starts using the swap file.

Go to Start then Run

Type “msconfig.exe” then ok

Click on the System.ini tab

Expand the 386enh tab by clicking on the plus sign

Click on new then in the blank box type”ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1″

Click OK

Restart PC

So there you have it – My top ten tips for improving the performance of your PC. If like many of our clients you are a busy business owner, you should consider outsourcing this function to a managed service provider. Health checks such as this come as standard and you have the peace of mind that IT is performing at its best.

To your success!

Angela

http://www.supremesystems.co.uk/

PC Health Checks – Top Ten Tips
By Angela Hart, Client Services Manager, Supreme Systems. You can contact Angela by email on angela.hart@supremesystems.co.uk or 0121 236 0065
Like a car that needs regular servicing to ensure it is in tip top condition, your PCs also require regular attention and “health checks” I have listed what I consider the top ten ways you can make your PCs perform better. Some of these tips you can perform quite easily yourself, others you may need to use professional like Supreme Systems (you knew there had to be a catch right?J) to make sure you do not cause any damage to your PCs.
1. Delete all temporary files including internet cached files and cookies
For Internet Explorer 5 and above, you can follow these directions to delete all temp files and cookies.
1) Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools2) Click on Internet Options3) On the General Tab, in the middle of the screen, click on Delete Files4) You may also want to check the box "Delete all offline content"5) Click on OK and wait for the hourglass icon to stop after it deletes the temporary internet files6) You can now click on Delete Cookies and click OK to delete cookies that websites have placed on your hard drive.
To clear the history log:
1) Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools2) Click on Internet Options3) On the General Tab, in the middle of the screen, click on Clear History4) Click OK
To clean up other temporary files
1) Click Start, Programs (or All Programs), Accessories, Systems Tools, Disk Cleanup2) Choose the correct drive usually C:\3) Check the boxes in the list and delete the files
2. Remove unused programs from you control panel
The easiest way I have found to simply remove unwanted programs is simply:
1. Go to Start Control Panel and select Add Or Remove Programs (see Figure 2).














Figure 2: Remove any software program with the Add Or Remove Programs utility under Control Panel.

Managed IT Services

by Shakeel Rashid, Technical Services Engineer of Supreme Systems
For more information on our products and services please contact me on
0845 009 5430 or alternatively email me on shakeel.rashid@supremesystems.co.uk


What is Managed Services?
A managed service is when you gather all your IT needs into one easy to understand contract. A managed service contract would usually include services such as: -

· Virtual IT Department (Helpdesk Support)
· Onsite Support
· Network Management
· Remote Working
· Backups & Recovery
· Software & Hardware Purchase & Installation
· Health Checks
· Training

These would be the most common services that a potential client would ask for before signing a contract.

How it Works
An IT company would usually have a team of engineers in place (who specialise in the certain fields listed above) ready to deal with any issues that would arise. When a company is having a problem, they would give the helpdesk team a call to see if the problem can be resolved remotely. The call would be logged and the team would try and tackle the issue. If the problem is resolved then the call would be ended and the helpdesk team would usually note down how the problem was solved. However, if it wasn’t resolved then the call would be escalated to a more senior engineer. If the problem is resolved to this point then the same as the above would happen, if it isn’t then an engineer would be assigned to visit the site and sort the problem out. The engineer would only fix those problems for which the customer is entitled to in the contract. If they aren’t covered then an hourly fee plus the labour costs would normally be charged.

Who are the users of this service?
The most common users of this service would normally be SME’s. They have enough cash to support their IT infrastructure but not enough cash to hire two or three full-time in house employees.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Managed Services
The greatest advantage of this is the fact that you can outsource all your requirements to a specialist company who can deal with any queries you have in a fraction of the price of what you would pay a full time staff. When you outsource all your IT needs, you can essentially concentrate solely on your core business instead of worrying about who is going to sort your IT requirements out and what you are going to do if something goes wrong. The only disadvantage is the fact that it may take some time for an engineer to come on site for business critical issues.

http://www.supremesystems.co.uk/