Pennyrile Technologies

How Does IT Downtime Affect Your Business

How Much Does IT Downtime Really Cost Your Business?

We live in a digital world and if you don’t take the right steps, it can seriously impact your company. The importance of having a backup system in place cannot be stressed enough. When it comes to business networking there are many things you need to look after such as hardware, software and security. One thing that often gets overlooked is ensuring that you have adequate levels of redundancy in your business to prevent IT downtime. Many small business owners think IT downtime only costs them a few productive hours, but there’s a lot more at stake when your systems go down. Customer satisfaction and loss of brand integrity are just two of the key losses apart from the more evident costs such as lost productivity and a temporary dip in sales. Here’s a few other ways downtime can hurt your business: IT Downtime Causes Customer Loss If you own a business, then you know how important it is to keep your customers happy. However, sometimes, things go wrong. For example, you might have a power outage, and this could cause problems for both your employees and your clients. If you don’t take steps to prevent these kinds of situations from happening, then you’re likely to lose money and customers. Today’s buyer lacks patience. They are used to getting everything at the click of a mouse, at the tap of a finger. Suppose they are looking for the kind of products/services that you offer and your site doesn’t load or is unavailable, even if temporarily, you are likely to lose them to a competitor permanently. Damage to Brand Reputation Customers are now using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and blogs to vent their bad brand experiences. Imagine an irate customer who doesn’t know if their card was charged on your site, or not, due to a server error. If it’s your bad day, they will probably be using Facebook or Twitter to share their bad experience, and it could be viewed by hundreds of people, causing irreparable harm to your brand image. Customers who have bad experiences are two to three times more likely to leave a negative review than customers who had a positive experience and leave a review. This is all the more reason to make sure your systems have backups in in place to prevent IT downtime for your business. IT Downtime Causes Loss of Productivity When your systems don’t work, this can have a direct impact on your employees’ productivity. Consider a research firm of 200 employees where they primarily rely on internet connectivity to access the knowledge base. If the server hosting the knowledge base is down or the Internet goes down, there’s a total loss of at least 1600 work hours for just one business day. It’s important to have backup Internet and servers for your business to prevent this kind of downtime. With a backup or fail-over Internet line, you no longer have to worry about IT downtime if the primary Internet line goes down. Backup servers are equally important, ensuring your employees can continue to work if one goes down. Overtime, Repair and Recovery, Compensatory costs In the above case, imagine the overtime wages the business would have to incur if they were to make up for the work loss they faced owing to IT downtime. In addition, there’s always the cost of repair—the money the business would have to shell out to fix the issue that caused the downtime and get the server up and running again. In some cases, businesses would have to incur additional costs to make customers happy. These could include giving away the product for free or at a discount, or using priority shipping to make up for a delayed order. Possible Lawsuits Businesses could also be at the receiving end of lawsuits. For example, a downtime that has an impact on production, service level agreements with customers, or delivery and finances of the customer could invite litigation against your business. Marketing Efforts Rendered Useless Consider your business is running a pay-per-click advertisement that shows up for the right keywords on Google, or an extensive e-mail campaign that your business engages in. However, when the prospect clicks on the link, all they see is an error message that your website isn’t available. Isn’t that a waste of your marketing budget? Making sure your website is available for customers 24/7 is extremely important in this digital age. Website availability is just another example of IT downtime that could harm your business. The Bottom Line It only takes one natural disaster, one technical snag, or just one power outage to cripple or put you out of business, both virtually and in reality. It’s probably time to think about how you can mitigate the threat of IT downtime and whether your Managed Service Provider can act as an effective and efficient ally in this battle for you. See how Managed Services and IT Support can help you today.

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Website Mobile Design

Has Your Website Been Optimized for Mobile Users?

Did you know that this year there will be more mobile web surfers than stationary ones? That means more prospects are accessing your business website more through their smart phones, tablets or other mobile devices than with a laptop or PC. If you thought you had time to make the switch this year, you may want to reconsider in light of new research. A recent study revealed that around 40% of prospects move on to a competitor if they have a poor mobile experience. How prepared is your business for this change? Well, if you are just starting out, the following checklist will help… 1. Make sure your mobile site is different from your regular website – While you must stick to your branding standards, your mobile website should be simpler than your web version. The reason being is that complicated designs that load well and look good on computers are often distorted when accessed through a mobile device. Plus, mobile surfers don’t really have the time to sift through a lot of content. Bottom line: your website’s mobile friendly version should be short, simple and sweet…offering your viewers the most important and basic sections of your website. 2. Option to access the actual website – That said, do provide your viewers with the option to access your regular website through their mobile device, as some viewers will prefer to stick with what is familiar. 3. Sitemap – Whether it’s your actual website or the mobile version, make sure you have a sitemap in place. A sitemap just makes it easier for your viewers to navigate through the site. 4. Get rid of flash – Most mobile devices don’t support flash. Keep this in mind when optimizing your website for the mobile surfer. Simple images that load fast are your best bet. 5. Testing – Make sure you test your mobile website thoroughly on different operating systems, browsers and devices. What looks good on one device might be totally distorted on another. You could also develop a mobile application instead of a website, but most SMBs find that option too expensive and complicated. So, for now, put the 5 tips mentioned above into use and get your mobile-friendly website into action…

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Improving SEO

Five Ways Your Business Can Improve Its Search Engine Rankings

In an age where most business happens online, not showing up in Google search results can really hurt you. While there’s no real shortcut to showing up consistently on web searches, there are a few quick fixes to get your site to show up on your potential customer’s search results with search engine optimization (SEO). HTML  Tags / Metadata Important HTML tags include the title tag, meta description and meta keywords. Make sure each page of your website has appropriate HTML tags. The title tag of each page should be unique and relevant to that particular page. Title metadata is responsible for the page titles displayed at the top of a browser window and as the headline within search engine results. It is the most important metadata on your page. Description metadata is the description that a browser may use in your page search return. Think of it as your site’s window display. It should be a concise and appealing description of what is contained on the page. A good meta description will typically contain two full sentences. Keyword metadata is rarely used to calculate search engine rankings. However, you should already know your keyword phrases, so it doesn’t hurt to add them into your keyword metadata. As a general rule, try to keep it to about 3-6 phrases with each phrase consisting of 1-4 words. Alternative Text Images Ensure that most of the images on your website have alternative text tags. Adding alternative text to photos is first and foremost a principle of web accessibility. Visually impaired users using screen readers will be read an alt attribute to better understand an on-page image. Alt tags are basically descriptions for images. By adding relevant alternative tags to images, you are allowing search engines to recognize them, which will improve the likelihood of your page showing up in search results. Alt text will also be displayed in place of an image if an image file cannot be loaded File Hierarchy How simple is your HTML file hierarchy? Check to see if your website’s pages are logically situated and avoid too many unnecessary folders. For example: ‘NFL=>Teams=>PittsburghSteelers’ is a better folder structure than ‘NFL=>Teams=>NFCEast=>PittsburghSteelers’, because here ‘NFCEast’ is redundant and only serves to push the Steelers page deeper down the order. This complexity makes your site less likely to show up on search results for people searching for Steelers websites. Sitemap A sitemap acts as a navigational guide for your visitors as well as search engines. They help search engines find, crawl and index all of your website’s content and also tell search engines which pages on your site are the most important. Does your website have one? If not, then it’s time to put up a site map on your website. There are many SEO plugins that will help automate this process. Yoast SEO, Rank Math, and All in One SEO Pack are just a few. Using a plugin will help automate the process as well. Whenever a new page or post is added to your site, the plugin will automatically generate a new sitemap for your site. Publish Relevant Quality Content Read your website content to determine its quality. Is your content written for search engines or actual visitors? Is it stuffed with keywords? Does it truly add value to your audience, or is simply there to fill up the page? Answer these questions and make sure it has value for your audience. Value for your audience translates to better search engine rankings. Quality content is the number one driver of your search engine rankings and there is no substitute for great content. Quality content created specifically for your intended user increases site traffic, which also improves your site’s authority and relevance.

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Five Things To Preserve Your Network and Systems

Small & medium-sized businesses (SMBs) today are under attack from malware, ransomware, external threats and data breaches. But with the lack of sophistication around most SMBs security stance, the prospect of remaining unaffected by attacks is bleak. Here are five things SMBs can do to help preserve their networks and systems. While this list does not completely cover all aspects of protecting a network, these are great first steps. If you need assistance, a managed service provider (MSP) like Pennyrile Technologies can help. A managed service provider delivers services, such as network, application, infrastructure and security, via ongoing and regular support and active administration on customers’ premises, in their MSP’s data center (hosting), or in a third-party data center. Backup Files Every Day  As catastrophic as data loss is, the number of businesses that still are not backing up the computers and servers on their network is unbelievable. According to the Symantec Small to Medium Size Businesses (SMB) data, only 23% of SMBs are backing up their data on a daily basis and fewer than 50% are backing up data weekly. Any number of events can result in data loss, so the importance of frequently backing up your network cannot be overstated. Losing any amount of data can compromise your personal identity, lead to downtime for your business and employees, and even bankrupt your entire company. Ensure Backup Procedures Are Checked Regularly Many times business owners think that they have a backup system in place only to find out after it’s too late that it hasn’t been working properly. It may seem like your files are being backed up daily, however, the backup could have become corrupt or it is not backing up huge chunks of critical data. Check your backup procedures regularly to ensure they are working properly in order to be sure that ALL of your data can be recovered. In the age of BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Devices) it is also important to frequently backup data on your employee’s personal laptops, iPads or Blackberrys, so make sure you have a procedure in place to check those backups as well. Make Sure Updated Virus Protection and Firewalls Are Always Enabled Far too many companies either have no virus protection, expired virus software licenses, or disabled virus programs that aren’t running at all. This makes their business technology vulnerable to virus attacks from emails, spam, data downloads, and un-reputable websites. Further, because of inadequate firewall protection about 40% of small to medium businesses will have their network accessed by a hacker. Chances are, when these businesses are attacked they will be entirely unaware it is happening. In order to protect your valuable data and assets, ensure your virus protection is adequate, up-to-date and functioning properly and that your firewall is intact. Finally, don’t forget to update security patches and change passwords when an employee leaves in order to deter hacking attempts. Monitor Server Drives Dangerously full server drives can bring their own set of problems – ranging from program and server crashes to sluggish email delivery. Proactive monitoring and maintenance of your servers can spare your business a lot of problems down the road. And don’t just monitor to see if the drives are full, but also monitor for hard drive failures, or predicted failures to help avoid data loss. Replacing drives with predicted failures can save your business time and money by avoiding extended downtime. Regularly Check Critical Built-In Logs Very few problems with technology emerge suddenly. These problems typically progress over time and evolve into more serious problems. Frequently review your critical built-in log files to help identify the problem before it has gotten out of control and wreaks havoc on your business infrastructure.

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Data Loss

Data Loss Can Cause You to Shut Down

Small and medium sized businesses today are relying more than ever on IT systems to efficiently run their business, support customers and optimize productivity. These systems house sensitive digital data ranging from employee and customer information, to internal emails, documents and financial records, sales orders and transaction histories. This is in addition to applications and programs critical to daily business functions and customer service. While corporate-level data losses and insider theft are well publicized, many smaller businesses have also become casualties of data loss and theft. Following a significant data loss, it is estimated that a small-to-medium sized business can lose up to 25% in daily revenue by the end of the first week. Projected lost daily revenue increases to 40% one month into a major data loss. According to The National Archives & Records Administration in Washington, 93% of companies that have experienced data loss, coupled with prolonged downtime for ten or more days, have filed for bankruptcy within twelve months of the incident while 50% wasted no time and filed for bankruptcy immediately. Finally, 43% of companies with no data recovery and business continuity plan actually go out of business following a major data loss. Still, a survey conducted by Symantec SMB revealed that fewer than half of SMBs surveyed backup their data each week. Only 23% of those surveyed said they backup data every day and have a business continuity plan in place. Businesses play on a much bigger playing field than they did two decades ago. Any disruptive technological event – even the smallest of incidents – can have an amplified impact on day-to-day business and profitability. Being proactive with data recovery solutions, and having emergency response procedures in place prior to a disruption or data disaster, is the only way to minimize downtime and soften the impact o  

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Hopkinsville-Christian County Library Unveils New Computers

Local Library Unveils New Computers Pennyrile Technologies is pleased to announce the installation of 19 new computers at the Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library. The new computers allow for patrons to browse the Internet, perform research, apply for jobs, pay bills, and more.  The computers run Microsoft’s newest operating system Windows 10, replacing older models running Windows XP. For this project, Pennyrile Technologies used Intel NUCs. The Intel NUC is an energy-efficient, fully functioning PC that not only fits your performance needs, but also fits in the palm of your hand. NUCs are great for small and medium business, computer labs, and call centers.

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PTECH Holiday Rewards

Refer Pennyrile Technologies and Receive An Apple iPad!*

Pennyrile Technologies recognizes that an important part of any business’ success is when one client’s trust results in a referral to a new client. We appreciate your confidence in us and would like to reward you for referring your friends and colleagues to us! We’re kicking off a new referral and rewards program and here’s how it works: Refer a firm to us and you’ll receive your choice of a Pennyrile Buck, which is redeemable for 1 hour of our services, or a Visa gift card worth $50! If your referral hires Pennyrile Technologies as their IT Service Provider and signs a Managed Services contract, you’ll receive your choice of an Apple iPad* or 8 Pennyrile Bucks with our deepest appreciation. Thank you to all our clients! You are the foundation from which our business grows! Referral Program Terms & Conditions. Offer valid for first-time business referrals. The referral program is only available for active Pennyrile Technology accounts in good standing. To make referrals, you must: (1) Provide us with a valid email address and name of referral; (2) Have an active account in good standing; (3) Each Referee must sign a managed services agreement within 60 days of receiving the referral. Please allow up to four (4) weeks after referral validation for referral reward to be applied. Unused Pennyrile Bucks expire (1) year after issue date. Pennyrile Technologies reserves the right to modify, extend or cancel this Program at any time. *Apple iPad Air 2 16GB Wi-Fi

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Securing Wireless Network

Securing Your Home Wireless Network

Why you should secure your wireless network In today’s connected world, it’s important to make sure your home wireless network is secured from threats. An unsecured wireless network is an open invitation for anyone to access your network, computers, and personal information. Hackers and identity thieves are increasingly targeting unsecured networks to gain access to passwords, banking information, credit cards, and data. When you leave your home, do you leave the door unlocked? Probably not, and leaving your wireless network unsecured is no different.   How to secure your network Before we start, there are a couple of things we need to do. Make sure your router is plugged in and powered on. We recommend connecting your desktop or laptop directly into the router while we make these changes. Connect an Ethernet cable from your computer to one of the Ethernet ports on the router. On most home routers there are 4 LAN ports available and labeled 1-4. Do not plug into the WAN port which should be labeled and color coded differently. We will need to log onto the router to secure your wireless network. We need to know the IP address to do this though. By default, most routers have an IP address of 192.168.1.1. You can check the documentation for your router to be sure, or by opening a command prompt and checking your local gateway. For the latter, go to Start and type “cmd” and hit enter. The command prompt will open. Type in “ipconfig” and hit enter. You will see an IP address listed for the default gateway. This is your router’s address. Log in to your router. Open up your browser and type in the IP address of the router. You will then be prompted to enter the username and password. If you are unable to locate the documentation that came with the router, you can find the default username and password of your router here. Change the administrator username and password. Make sure to create a strong password to prevent unwanted access to the administrative settings.Change the SSID (Service Set Identifier) of the router. The SSID is the name you give your home network. Always change the default SSID! By default, wireless routers will broadcast your network name (SSID) and anyone with a wireless device can connect within seconds to an insecure network.Enable WPA2 wireless security. Of the wireless encryption methods available today, WPA2 provides the best method of data security. WPA2 uses an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) security algorithm to secure wireless home networks. Every wireless device since 2006 has been required to support WPA2 to be considered Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ WEP – Wired Equivalency Protocol is an early security standard for wireless devices that uses a static (fixed) key and encryption algorithm to secure data. WEP is no longer recommended for home network security due to weaknesses in the algorithm that can be cracked in under 3 minutes. WPA – WiFi Protected Access is an improvement of WEP as a temporary solution to wireless security that uses Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) that generates a new key for each packet of data transmitted.Create a strong security passphrase. Disable guest access if enabled by default.Save your settings. Wait until the router power cycles to disconnect your computer.You are now ready to connect your wireless devices. Locate your home network (SSID) on your wireless device and enter the passphrase you set earlier.

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World Backup Day

World Backup Day

World Backup Days is on March 31st and we want to know if you have your files backed up? Need assistance setting up a backup for your data? Give us a call. What exactly is a backup? A backup is a second copy of all your important files — for example, your family photos, home videos, documents, emails, and financial data. Rather than storing it all in one place (like your computer), you should keep another copy of everything somewhere safe like an external hard drive, DVD, or the cloud. So why should I backup? Losing your files is  more common than you’d think. Ever lost your phone, camera or tablet? What about a hard drive failure on your computer? There could also be an environmental event such as a fire. Your stuff could have been saved with a backup. One small accident or failure could destroy all the important stuff you care about. How should I backup? There are several ways to back up your data. You can back up to an external disk or drive, such as CD or DVD burners, USB sticks, and external hard drives. You can also use a third party service that backs up to the Internet or cloud. How often should I backup? You should backup anytime you have updated or added media that is important to you. If your computer is starting to die or become less reliable, make a backup immediately. For some people, backing up daily is necessary, and for others, weekly or monthly. Choose a schedule that works for you. Using third party software can automate your backups so you don’t forget!  

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