In the wake of the recent hacking of the Sony Playstation Network, in which over 100 million users were thought to have had their personal information stolen, internet security has once again become a huge issue. As of the 12^th May 2011 Sony still do not know when the PSN will be back online and the event has served as a warning not just to console gamers but to everyone and anyone that uses the internet. If a company like Sony can be on the receiving end of this then surely we are all at risk.

Email Viruses

The most obvious online security threat to many individuals and companies arrives in the form of spam emails. We’ve all at some point received emails advertising Viagra or some other miracle drug that does something or other ‘instantly’ for ‘only $9.95’! Not only are these incredibly annoying, but they can be harmful to your computer or laptop.

Emails can contain viruses or links to phishing sites – sites that imitate a real site in order to procure information from you – and for this reason the use of a sophisticated email security service (like that offered by us!) is recommended.

Asia ‘Worst Purveyors’ of Spam

Sophos have recently conducted research into the source of spam for the first quarter of 2011 which has revealed that Asia have now surpassed Europe as the chief culprits. Spam remains a problem across the globe though, with Graham Cluley from Sophos stating that “too many computer users are risking a malware infection that sees their computer recruited into a spam botnet. To combat the spammers, it’s not only essential for computer users to run up-to-date security software, they must also resist the urge to purchase products advertised by spam.”

CE Services

For just a £1 a month we can safeguard your email account. We will redirect your email to our servers, check that it is free of viruses, trojans, worms and spam content, and forward it on to you when we are confident that it represents no threat.

In addition to this CE Services provide a number of internet security solutions to match yours or your business’s own personal needs.

I have now been with CE Services for 2 months and in this time I have learnt a lot and I am still learning more and more each day. I am progressing with my studies and hope to gain some more qualification by the end of the year; I am also getting the hang of driving.

Since my last diary entry I have been doing similar things as usual reloading laptops and pc’s, fixing things in the workshop and so on. But I have also done a few different things like doing my first helpdesk call and going out on site with Ian which was different because I wasn’t just doing installations like i have been with Phil, I was actually fixing problems. I have started call logging to and I finally have the confidence to answer the phone whenever it rings. I am still enjoying every moment of working for CE services.

CE Services have gained Microsoft Gold Partner status. We have been working towards this goal as the business and IT support market place has changed from an onsite break – fix model to a predominantly remote helpdesk  support solutions environment.

On receiving the Microsoft Gold Certified Partner certification managing director Mark Ralph made the following comments:

“We are all delighted at CE Services to have received this prestigious certification from Microsoft. It is recognition of all the hard work our team put in every day. I am particularly pleased as it proves the long term staff development plan put in place was the correct decision and carried out in an effective manner. I would like to thank all the engineers for their proactive attitude towards the training programmes which have helped us secure this award. However achieving Gold is not only a reflection of our technical ability, we also had to score highly on Microsoft’s customers satisfaction survey and it makes it even more satisfying to know your customers are very happy with the support they receive”

Alongside the Gold partner status CE Services were recognised to have the following key competencies, “Small business specialist community, Server Platform, Midmarket Solution Provider and Network Solutions” reflecting the areas of specialisation we have followed.

CE Services training programme does not stop here however, they have recently taken on two new local engineers, Josh and Ash who are both revising for their Microsoft exams currently. You can find more about how they are getting on in their online blog entries.

As mentioned previously CE Services once again are taking part in the Warrington Half Marathon to raise money for the superb Tim Parry Jonathan Ball Foundation for Peace organisation. Last year we raised £700 pounds for the charity, this year our athletes hope to raise £1000!

The Tim Parry Jonathan Ball Foundation for Peace is CE Services charity partner.

The CE Services team are very proud to be running for The Tim Parry Jonathan Ball Foundation for Peace. This is helping to motivate them to train in this ‘summer’ weather! Perhaps training too hard though as one member of the team was late for work because of over sleeping due to a ‘run’. We’ll believe him thousands wouldn’t!!

If you have a moment please check out the wonderful, Foundation For Peace and if you feel inclined to please recognise the tremendous work done by the Foundation for peace and the effort being put in by all 5 members of the CE Services team by sponsoring us.

The CE Services Team is:

Mark Ralph, Darryl Cann, Matt Dyson Rick Delooze and Rob Fellows

I am now halfway through my second month at CE services and everything is still going well. I am currently studying for the CompTIA Network plus certification and also for my driving test. I recently had my first driving lesson which went well. I look forward to driving these:

I am enjoying working here and have taken on more responsibilities as Phil has gone away on holiday so I am doing more things independently. It has given me a glimpse of what it is going to be like once I am ready to go out on calls by my self. I can’t wait!

Other things that I have done in the last week are fixing more laptops, reloading PC’s and I also built a computer from scratch which was challenging but in the end it all came together and worked fine. This made me happy. I also replaced a hard drive in a laptop.

One of the most enjoyable things I have done was going on a night out with everyone after the company meeting. We all went bowling followed by pizza hut and it was a good night. I can’t wait for the Christmas Party!

Originally this was going to be an article from us at CE Services about how to ensure safe online working. However when discussing it the password section ballooned bigger and bigger so we decided to give it the space it deserves!

Your Password

If we said to you design a key to your life by which you could access your family pictures, online banking, insurance details, home movies, business finances, diary or most intimate thoughts you would make it as difficult to replicate or fake as possible. So why when choosing a password do so many people ignore the gravitas of that decision?

For millions of people their passwords is their key to their life

In the IT world we have soreheads after repeatedly banging our heads against a brick wall with regards to password strength! The number of offices where a user’s login is Password1 or the same as the login is incredible. The minimum your password should be is:

• Not a word you would find in the dictionary
• Mixture of upper and lower case letters
• 8 Characters long
• Include numbers
• Include at least one symbol such as # or $.

For example an OK password maybe: 48LoFK7$

Best Password Practice

For best password practice however your password should be at least 14 characters long.. For example:

!PP!£14Y&i$B:)TE*

This is easier to remember than it looks:

Attention – Password –Protection – Is – Extremely – Important – For – You – And – I – Scammers – Beware – Smiley face – The – End – Star

Microsoft rate this password as 4/4 or ‘best’ for password strength.

Test your password @ :

https://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/passwords/checker.aspx?WT.mc_id=Site_Link

People often think that these types of passwords are difficult to remember but they shouldn’t be. It is commonly assumed that it takes 21 times of doing something for it to become a habit. Most users will login in 21 times in 2 days. (Assuming they are locking the computer every time they leave it! But that’s a different article!)

However we’re sorry but it isn’t enough to have one good password!  It is important to have different passwords.

The standard reply to this is there are too many to remember which the author empathises with and recognises that having similar passwords is infinitely better than having them written down, stored in you mobile phone etc.

So what is the best solution to this conundrum?

Prioritise your most important passwords.

For example prioritise your PC login or online banking password and make sure they meet the above requirements as well being unique! Different users will prioritise their password strength differently, but is  useful to think of it from another perspective,

from all the sites you use a password for which ones have you got the most to lose by your password being used by a malicious entity?

This might lead you to think that security of your fantasy sports team isn’t as essential as your online banking so you could use the same password for all your online sports teams.

So if you’re reading this now and have a weak password CHANGE IT NOW. When you next meet your family or work colleagues pass on this article and make sure they have strong passwords. As it is no use you having a strong password if the one your partner uses to check your joint bank account is weak.

I am now in my second month at CE services and I am really enjoying it. I am currently training for the windows server administration exam which is a Microsoft qualification. I have also recently started my driving lessons. I’ve booked 13 in total so hope to pass quite quickly. Soon I will soon be able to go out on calls by my self.

I believe that I am making a lot of progress, I’m learning new things everyday and I hope I can get a few more qualifications. I am getting on with everyone in the office and everyone at other companies when I am on site. Everyone has made me feel welcome and I am really enjoying working for CE services.

The last week on helpdesk has been a little more challenging than the previous weeks as Andy has been on holiday. Although I feel that I worked well under the pressure and with help from Dayryl have been able to cope well with more calls. Although I wouldn’t call it being thrown in the deep end I’m glad that I’ve been tested with more responsibility and proved myself so early on in my career at CE Services.

I have also been working towards a Microsoft Certification in Exchange 2003. I’m doing this as a large majority of the calls we receive are regarding emails and having a formal qualification in MCE 2003 will be very useful.

This morning I has perhaps my most challenging call to solve. A customer logged a call because he couldn’t logon to his laptop as his profile was unable to be loaded. Essentially making only thing the laptop could do would be a door stop! This was the first time that I had seen this problem so I used my own initiative, problem solving skills and available references to identify the problem. I then instructed the customer on how to solve the problem by configuring the registry file. This worked and the customer was very happy with the result.

From the 1^st of August, the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace will be CE Services’ charity partner for the following 12 months. The Foundation for Peace, based at The Peace Centre, works with individuals and communities to prevent, manage and deal with the aftermath of conflict. It provides educational programmes for children, young people and adults to empower them to make a positive contribution in their own community.

The Foundation is the only organisation in England working with victims and survivors of political violence such as those affected by the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’, 7/7 bombings, Bali or Madrid as well as former soldiers who served overseas.

The Foundation for Peace was created by the parents of 12 year old Tim Parry and supported by the parents of 3 year old Johnathan Ball. Both Tim and Johnathan were tragically killed as a direct result of the IRA’s 1993 bombing of Warrington. Based in a purpose-built £3million Peace Centre, the Foundation currently operates across the U.K.

On the 23^rd of July Mark Ralph, managing director of CE Services explained, “we are delighted to announce the Foundation for Peace as our charity partner, we have a long relationship with this organisation and are pleased to cement this by making them our inaugural charity partner. Everyone at the Foundation works so hard and we’re delighted to be able to help in our own small way”

Lynn Hitchen, Operations Manager said “CE Services have provided IT support to us for the last year and they have always been professional, offer a prompt service and all the staff are very helpful. We are really pleased that they are taking us as their first charity partner and we look forward to continuing our relationship with them.”

The next fundraiser CE Services will be taking part in for the North West based charity is the Warrington half marathon. CE Services will have 5 runners taking part. This is the second time CE Services have taken part in the race for the Foundation for Peace. Last year they raised £ 700. This year CE Services aims to crack the £1000 mark.

“Outsourcing your IT support has been recognised to potentially have many important potential benefits for any organisation” Bahli & Rivard, International Journal of Management Science

Outsourcing your IT is a simple way of making sure your IT systems constantly work and don’t eat up your time. Organisations don’t employ a mechanic to maintain or fix their vehicles,. They just want to know they, work are safe and secure. So why do they use so much of their resources trying to manage a constantly changing vital piece of their company; the IT systems? Below are ten reasons why outsourcing your IT is any size company’s IT solution.

1. Expertise

Outsourcing your IT gives you access to a team of people who are constantly working in the IT Support Industry. This means they are coming across issues facing businesses in the United Kingdom each and every day. Your problem will be an easy solution for them. The IT support industry is constantly evolving with new technology where as in house IT support can become stagnated and co placement.

2. Cost

70% of IT spend is spent standing still (Gartner, 2003). Outsourcing your IT support saves money. Every size of company can make significant savings through outsourcing. For example a company of 25 employees would save £40,000 per year! if they outsourced their IT support. A company of 400 employees would look at a saving of £107,250 per year! The biggest single saving is wages and all the costs and time associated with that such as, tax and NI payments, recruitment, pension contribution, training, accreditations, overtime, mobile phone bill, company car, fuel card, sickness pay or holiday pay

3. Full time cover

Outsourced companies offer cover 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Usually no call out fee is charged. What does your company do when your IT support manager is on holiday or sick?

4. Consultation

An outsourced company can advise on the best way forward for your IT infrastructure with a totally business focussed mind as they will not hold any emotion towards previous projects that they have implemented or only buy kit because, ‘they know how to use it’. A large proportion of in house IT spend is spent on buying hardware which is totally unnecessary for its purpose. An outsourced IT company will save you money by buying kit that is fit for the job.

5. Issue spotting not problem stopping

Through constant live monitoring of your servers, network and hardware an outsourced IT company can spot any issues before they become problems. This will minimise any downtime your company will ever experience.

6. Virus and Spam filtering

An outsourced IT company will setup your virus and spam filters to the exact severity you desire. Any viruses or spam will stop at their filter before it gets anywhere near your systems

7. Skills shortage

There is a lack of experienced qualified IT support experts in the British job market place. This has 2 main consequences. Increased wages for the skilled IT support engineers and in turn a higher fixed cost for companies who do not outsource their IT support. The other result is that businesses with their own internal IT support often end up with IT staff who would not get the position if there were more highly skilled workers available.

8. Focus on your business

IT management and support is one of the most time draining processes of any business. Why let it take up so much of your valuable time when as identified it is less expensive and quicker to have an outsourced IT solutions company to take on this responsibility.

9. Fixed Costs

Outsourcing your IT allows you to budget for the entire year with certainty. With the majority of outsourced IT contracts parts and labour of all your hardware are covered at no extra cost. If you have an in house IT department these costs have to be absorbed by your business and they can run into the tens of thousands of pounds.

10. Reputation and Staff morale

Customer interaction through your IT systems is one of the biggest determinants of customer’s perception of your business. Correspondingly poorly managed IT department can reduce staff morale especially if the network is slow or un-secure.