Michael Turner
IT Consultant & Young Entrepreneur from Somerset
IT Consultant & Young Entrepreneur from Somerset
Jan 22nd
For the last few days, one of my clients has been experiencing problems with their Hosted Exchange email account.
The account worked fine on their iPhone and also from OWA, however, when trying to use Outlook 2010 on their Windows Vista Desktop, it would hang for about 15 minutes, before asking for their account password, then a further 5-10 minutes before it would connect to Exchange and update the Inbox.
After speaking to our Exchange admins, we couldn’t figure out the cause, so I decided to grab the machine and run the usual diagnostic checks, I also reinstalled Outlook and ran a virus and malware scan. Unfortunately, none of this resolved the issue.
I was checking all the settings when I noticed within the ‘Connection’ tab the ‘on fast networks, connect using http first’ proxy setting option was not ticked, so checked the box, restarted Outlook and the problem was resolved!
Outlook now connects to the Exchange server instantly, great!
Mar 22nd
Ensuring your data is secure is becoming more and more difficult, as RSA recently announced that it has been the victim of an ‘extremely sophisticated’ hack which managed to breach its security.
Whilst at the end of the September file sharing hit the headlines again. This time it wasn’t a simple “is file sharing bad?” debate,, but instead because data that the UK law firm ACS:Law Solicitors held had been leaked, mainly personal details of individuals provided by UK Internet service providers, and the files they are alleged to have downloaded illegally
This makes us consider how careful organisations need to be with our personal data and data of customers, suppliers and staff. Many companies don’t give it much thought, yet UK businesses hold (and transmit) huge amounts of personal data, bank details and customer records.
There are many things that both individuals and small businesses can do to reduce the risk of their data being lost or stolen, from simply ensuring you have a secure password, not something like secret, or password11 will instantly reduce your risk. It is also important to have a good and up to date Antivirus, such as Eset Smart Security, which will protect you from web and email attacks.
It’s also very easy to add passwords to important word and excel documents - in Office 2007 click the Office button, go to Prepare and then click Encrypt. You can now add a password to the document. If you are using OpenOffice, go to File, then Save As and ensure that Save with password is ticked.
Protecting memory sticks is also very important, so how can you ensure this data is encrypted? – How about a SafeStick? – SafeStick is a CCTM Government Certified file encryption memory stick, which features features military level hardware encryption of all data. – I’ve used a couple of these and they are very good, but if you forget your password, you can forget seeing your data again!
We all must take care of the data we provide to websites, as announced last night Play.com‘s marketing company has had a data breach, meaning “some customer names and email addresses may have been compromised”
Play.com advised users to be “vigilant” with their email, and asked users to forward “anything suspicious” to privacy@play.com for investigation.
So taking simple extra precautions will help to prevent people stealing your data and you protect other people’s data.
Jan 17th
Since becoming a finalist at the Shell LiveWIRE awards back in 2009, I’ve had numerous press interviews and media enquiries, which have both been exciting and brilliant for my company TurnKey I.T Solutions.
I’ve also had a few enquiries for speaking events, to help inspire other young people to start their own business and find out how I started my business at a young age.
I have recently been listed at the School Speakers agency, which is an up and coming national agency, run by Claire Young from the BBC Apprentice and business partner Cat Yaffe.
You can find my profile by visiting here School Speakers – Michael Turner Young Entreprenuer