FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Beaverton, OR —Dec. 21, 2009— Protocol16, a computer company focusing on on-site computer repair, has formed a partnership agreement with Sunbelt Software to provide a unique security solution for customers.

Protocol16 will recommend, and resell, Vipre anti-virus, with anti-spyware capabilities to it’s customers.

“I have used several anti-virus companies over the years, to include Personal and Enterprise level products, and I must say, Vipre is at the top of my list.” said Justin Royce, owner of Protocol16. “Not only is Vipre fast and unobtrusive to computer users, it recently won a VB100 score at the latest anti-virus face off. Finding all 100 random “in the wild” files on the test is a pretty big thing. I’m sure our customers will agree that Vipre is a better solution than others as well.”

About Protocol16
Protocol16 was started in 2007 in response to a growing demand for technical services in the military communities of Germany. Since starting, Protocol16 has relocated to Oregon and launched a website and mobile computer repair business in the Portland Metro region. Headquartered in Beaverton, Protocol16 is quickly becoming a leader in mobile repair for businesses and consumers. Protocol16 maintains that customer satisfaction is the absolute primary goal of the business.

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This is something that Protocol16 sees a lot around the Portland Metro and we have a very specific answer:

“No”

The reasons:

• The free versions of most software packages, including AVG, are for home use only. The licensing requirements for most software packages require a license to be purchased for commercial use. While this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, there are stipulations to most software, including Windows, that you need to know about: Microsoft and other software manufacturers reserve the right, in their licenses, to come into YOUR business and audit your software licenses. If Microsoft or another company audits your software and finds problems, they will alert other manufacturers of those problems, causing a legal nightmare for you and your business. If you’re currently in a situation that could cost you money from the above situation, click here for a news story about how bad it can get… Not to continue pounding on this horrifying situation, but the Business Software Alliance makes it easy for current and past employees to report licensing fraud, to the tune of a $1 Million reward (and as of this writing, AVG is a “Spotlight” member)… If you’ve paid attention to past stories, you know a little bit about Page Rank (popularity, according to Google on a 0-10 sliding ranking system – 10 being the most popular) – BSA has a Page Rank of 7, higher than the Yahoo homepage at 5.
• AVG, while popular, is not as thorough as it should be. With the latest tests from AV-Comparatives, AVG didn’t place well. This may sound odd, but despite all the “good” reviews of AVG, it doesn’t work as well as it should – Free is Free, and you typically get what you pay for. While there are other free antivirus programs out there, they are not for commercial use.

What Antivirus Program Should I Use?
Protocol16 works closely with many companies to test software and hardware. We’ve worked with Symantec (aka: Norton), McAfee, and others. The best Antivirus solutions we’ve found are:

Home Use: (Free)

Avira Antivirus – MANY computer repair shops use Avira to help correct virus issues. While a lot of us use the the registered version, as well as other software, Avira is one of the best antivirus packages.

Business Use: (Commercial)

G Data: Considered the best antivirus package in the AV-Comparatives review showcase. It had low false positives, let very few actual infections past it and shined on all the tests earning it a 3 out of 3 review.

VIPRE: This is a new-comer to the market. They’ve hit advertising hard and fast with full page ads in all the Microsoft publications and more. While they have not been tested on AV-Comparatives, for now Protocol16 will recommend using it. We’ve had it installed on our internal network for testing and it has not slowed down anything or caused any tpe of crazy problems. We’ll revisit our review once AV-Comparatives reviews them as well.

The reason we listed three different software packages is because every situation is unique, requirements are different and we’re not going to tell you what you should install.

Lastly, the licensing situation above can be nasty, any good PC Repair company can help assist with licensing issues and assist in self-auditing your computers and networks to ensure that crazy things don’t happen. Coming from a large-network environment, I’ve been through several audits and as such, Protoco1l6 is more than capable in assisting in setting up an internal program to help you protect yourself.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them below or give Protocol16 a call.
Justin

Spyware and Viruses in the workplace are, unfortunately, common. We’ve had many calls to locations throughout the Portland Metro for removal of all kinds of nasties. It’s not fun, especially when we tell business owners that we must remove a machine for further work back at our office. In the worst cases, we must inform owners that we’ll need to get with them to backup data so we can re-load Windows. Those phone calls or in-person talks are never fun, trust us.

So, with all that said, here’s how you can protect yourself, and your business.

1. Spyware & Antivirus Software: Always have this type of software installed and running on your computers – always. We’re still testing solutions to see which software types we want to officially recommend. We’re testing one right now that we think is “the one”. We should know within the next week or so.
2. Browsing Policies: While I would love nothing better than to let my own employees go anywhere they want on the internet, they can’t. Having a policy of openly letting your employees surf as much as they want is a prime way to open yourself up to the horrors of a Spyware or Virus infestation. Depending on the type of router you have in the office, you may be able to use a service that allows DNS filtering. We know we just said a handful there, but there are services that will filter the websites you go to and allow/disallow the content to be passed through. There are also commercial options, like Untangle, that can help your situation. These types of software sit and monitor your connections and block certain types of sites based on rules you’ve setup.
3. Security Policies: All businesses, in my professional opinion, should use a tiered login system. This means that you have Admins and Standard Users. I even recommend this for home users and I personally “eat my own dog food” with this – ALL my computers, including my mac, are setup with an Admin login and a Standard User login for use. Between careful browsing habbits and the security I have in place, I have NEVER gotten infected with a Virus or anything else like Spyware…never. Some friends have called me paranoid, but when I have to fix their computers, they ask for the same level of security… Some may say “that’s impossible”, but it’s not – the right mindset and security policies really do help!
4. More Security: While this goes beyond most small businesses, did you know there are ways to make Windows so locked down that a 10 year old couldn’t mess it up? The way to do this is through an option called “Group Policies”. I can set your computer up to require you to hit Control-Alt-Delete to log in, or to only allow your employees to be able to write to certain areas of the hard drive… Again, sometimes this is considered overkill for small businesses, but it’s an option.
5. Software & Windows Updates: The last peice of the “easy” puzzle is to always keep your software up to date. Windows needs regular updates, don’t turn this feature off. Microsoft Office needs regular updates as well, and up until very recently with Vista and Windows 7, those updates required a seperate way to update Office instead of being able to use Windows Updates… Antivirus and Anti-Spyware applications require updates as well. Spending a little bit of time updating your software, or insuring that all the auto-updates installed properly, can save you countless hours with a technician.

Some people in the computer repair world would call me crazy for GIVING AWAY advice like this, but I think it’s best to educate my users instead of taking money from them over and over again. Why should I take your money when I can help educate you and make the experience easier for everyone?

As always, if you run a business and need an on call or on site repair company, we’re here for you and understand your needs. If you’re a residential customer, we’re here for you as well and know you have different needs (like setting up time limits for your kids to use the computer – we can teach you that in minutes with Vista and Windows 7). Feel free to give us a call for your computer repair needs!
Justin

It’s no doubt that the internet has allowed anyone that wants to be an author to write, but there are blogs everywhere, about any subject.

Oddly, there are not that many dedicated specifically towards computer repair. It seems that each company wants to maintain their own blog so that visitors stay on their websites. This is known as a Search Engine Optimization technique. The longer you stay on X website, the better it is for their rankings.

Now, while searching through Portland’s blogs, I was met with a full wall of information. I’ve never seen so many blogs dedicated to a city before. Most of these blogs are dedicated to topics throughout Portland and are not businesses trying to gain traffic either – they’re just normal people that love to write…  There’s even a Blog dedicated to staging homes around Portland (Business Blog) with a huge following of visitors. There are blogs devoted to Biking in Portland, Wine, and even a blog search engine to find other blogs around Portland.

Should I Create A Blog For My Business?
Now, since we work with businesses, this story does have a point. We often get asked “Should we make a Blog?” Our answer varies due to several factors. It also matters why you wish to setup a blog. If you’re looking at setting it up “because everyone else has one”, we’ll probably recommend against setting up a blog since your passion won’t be in it (it’s better to have a blog and update it occasionally than to set one up, update it a few times then abandon it). If you’re interested in sharing information with customers on a normal basis and looking at possibly getting better rankings on the search engines, then blogging can help.

Time
A blog doesn’t create itself and takes a huge amount of time for someone to sit down, write, edit and re-edit each entry. Some of the entries here on Protocol16 take upwards of an hour to create, others are done in just a ten minutes. Can you, or someone in your business, devote that much time to a website? I’ll guesstimate that I spend about 10 hours a month, just writing on the Protocol16 Blog. There are stories that are done, but haven’t been published, stories that done and waiting to be published and even stories that are just a title to remind me of what to write about.

Topics
Time is not the only consideration here. Many people feel they can come up with story after story after story of new ideas. That’s hard to do – I’ll be the first to admit that.

I currently run two personal blogs, the Protocol16 blog and I write for a Computer Industry website called Technibble. All those stories are floating around in my head, I have to be careful not to duplicate content.

It’s very easy to accidentally take a story from a personal blog and put a business spin on it. It’s much harder than most people realize to continue to coming up with topics. It’s best, when you first start, to write down a whole bunch of topics that you can write about for your business so you have a good foundation to start with.

Regularity
You’ve also got to consider how often to post your stories. Are you going to post one story every two weeks, once a week or are you going to attempt to go all-out and go for one-a-day? In the beginning, I always recommend with starting slow and ramping your speed up as you get more familiar with writing for your blog. This is so you don’t burn out, or start missing deadlines when you’re first starting. Even I miss an occasional deadline…

Don’t Abandon It
There is nothing worse than your clients showing up to your blog and finding that your last story was in 2004, even though you were posting regularly and just walked away from it. If we see this situation on a clients website, we always recommend removing the Blog all together. If your clients see that you started something and just left it, it can leave a sour taste with some of them.

In the end, a blog can be a wonderful tool to use to interact with your customers and help with your search engine traffic. Best of all, it’s free! If you have any questions about blogging or any computer type issue, please let us know. We’ll be more than happy to help!
Justin

I’ve talked with a lot of small business owners over the years and one question keeps coming up. The answer to this question just might shock most business owners.

Typically, smaller businesses do not need a server. When I say “smaller”, I mean places that have anywhere from 1-10 or so computers. While others would recomend not installing a server unless you have 50+ machines, there is a reason to do so. BUT, we would not recomend installing a server for anyone that didn’t need it, couldn’t afford it, etc – there are always options. Servers really depend on the actual business.

I’m not going to attempt to sell or un-sell a server to anyone over the internet. There are too many variables, but I will share this. Files and email go across the network needlessly, a lot. On top of that, every computer in your office connects to the internet to download the same updates as it’s neighbor, effectively downloading copies of copies of updates. In both situations, there are solutions that help that are server based – but again, it really depends on your situation.

If you’re curious about if you need a server, or have any other question, just give us a call at 503-524-9047 and we’ll setup an appointment to talk. Don’t worry, it’s free and it’ll be more like an interview to see what your current and future needs are. Oh, and we’re not pushy sales people, I swear.
Justin

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We’ve been busy with new clients around Portland, but a lot of small business owners that I’ve personally talked to have wondered why a business should repair their computer vs having a family friend look at it for them.

Our quick answer is: there are sometimes people that are qualified to work on a business computer, but not always. If you know someone that is a “computer whiz”, make sure they understand your situation. If they come in and clean up your computer, they may accidentally uninstall a program, remove an important backup or just plain cause more problems.

Again, we don’t have problems with others working on computers, but make sure they’re qualified. Our technicians are certified by Microsoft to work on server environments (large, medium and small) as well as workstations and home desktops/laptops. We’ve seen small and large environments and understand those unique needs.

The other option you need to think about is experience. Our experience has taught us a lot of things that businesses specifically focus on. Someone that comes in that doesn’t understand the business can really end up costing more money in labor than Protocol16 would charge you. This is because we specifically understand the security requirements of the business environment. In this case, you could pay someone off the street to install windows on each computer and customize each one, or use Protocol16 to customize one computer to be “perfect” and mirror that to all the other computers (there are specifics to this, but we can generally do it).

One last thing you want to think about when bringing in an outsider that’s not associated with a company is insurance. Ensure that whoever you bring in is Licensed, Bonded and Insured. This protects both you and the person you bring in. What would happen if someone broke the company server and your email was down for a week?

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to call 503-524-9047 or email us on the Contact Us page. We’re here to help the Portland Metro areas.
Justin