October 18, 2001

1
October 18, 2001

• ALG Users Group Meeting

for Accounting, ERP Information Technology
Professionals
2
Welcome

• Good evening!
• Thank you for coming
• Please get comfortable
• Feel free to ask questions contribute
• Want you to get real value from these meetings
• Please enjoy!

3
Introductions

• Some of the value of these meetings comes from
  networking with other business people
• Lets quickly go around the room
• Mention your name and company
• Start with ALG staff

4
Agenda

• News updates
• Topic 1 - better controlling your computer costs
  in a depressed economy
• Topic 2 - protecting your business from
  terrorist computer virus attacks
• User questions concerns
• Door prize drawing
• Summary conclusion

5
News Updates

• Several ALG clients have upgraded to the new Pro
  series 6.5. Results look good.
• VisionPoint clients looking at new upgrade paths
  AccountMate and BusinessVision 32
• Recent Pro 3 to VAM/LANwith beta data conversion

6
Meeting Materials

• Printouts of the presentation
• Use to take notes during the meeting
• Take with you afterwards
• PowerPoint presentation available online
• For PA people others who couldnt make it
• Need PowerPoint to view it
• ALG.cc/UserGroup.htm
• Handouts also available
• Only need Acrobat Reader

7
Topic 1Better Controlling Your Computer and IT
Costs

• in a depressed
• economy

8
Information technology costs

• Business slowdown, stock market depressed,
  lay-offs, worries
• Important to manage costs now more than ever
• How can you, with computers and IT?
• Many such costs arent discretionary

9
Info tech (IT) costs

• Equipment failures
• Data corruption
• Viruses
• Software conflicts
• Network problems
• Choose not to fix these?
• Probably not!

10
Manage your IT costs

• What then, can you do?
• Three important ways you can lower and better
  manage those costs

11
Manage your IT costs

• Do-it-yourself preventive maintenance
• Buy supplies at a discount
• Get some IT questions resolved for free

12
Do-it-yourself P.M.

• Preventive maintenance that keeps you from having
  a problem costs less than resolving it when it
  happens and always at the worst possible time
• Most businesses dont have a P.M. program
• Yet the same people DO have one for their cars,
  lawns, teeth, eyes,copiers, etc.

13
Do-it-yourself P.M.

• Test UPS / battery backups
• Clean your keyboards
• Clean your mice
• Defrag hard drives
• Verify backups
• Check and replace wornbackup tapes

14
Other important P.M.

• Work with your consultant to do P.M. on things
  that you cant or dont want to do yourself
• Clean inside of workstations and servers
• Check CPU fans power supplies
• Check network card androuter collisions

15
How to get started

• Prepare a P.M. task list
• Put them on a calendar some weekly, monthly,
  every six months
• Assign specific responsibilities
• Review it with your consultant / support staff
• Monitor that it gets done

16
An ounce of prevention

• Is worth a pound of cure!
• You can and will lower your IT costs by
  establishing a P.M. program
• Its not hard or expensive to set up
• Just do it

17
Manage your IT costs

• Do-it-yourself preventive maintenance
• Buy supplies at a discount
• Get some IT questions resolved for free

18
Buy supplies at a discount

• Laser printer toner
• Inkjet paper
• Labels
• Compressed air
• Cleaning supplies kits
• Dot matrix printer ribbons

19
Buy supplies at a discount

• Where do you buy these things?

20
Buy supplies at a discount

• Problem with most discount sources
• They change their specials all the time
• Are you feeling lucky?
• Do you have time to play this game?
• Do you want to play this game?

21
Buy supplies at a discount

• What if there was someone to tell you where to
  get the best price at any moment in time?
• And even do a comparison
• Quickly
• Easily
• For free
• Would you be interested?

22
Buy supplies at a discount

• There is !!!
• Internet buying services
• MySimon.com

23
Buy supplies at a discount

• Example
• Toner cartridge for HP LaserJet 4050
• Your choices range go as low as 70.49
• Hewlett Packard SRP is 185.00!
• Take into account brand, refurbished, etc.

24
Buy supplies at a discount

• Plan ahead so you have time to place an order
• Use the service often to reselect
• Dont get lulled into using the same source all
  the time

25
Manage your IT costs

• Do-it-yourself preventive maintenance
• Buy supplies at a discount
• Get some IT questions resolved for free

26
Get free IT answers

• How do I remove the legend from my Excel chart?
• How do I type something in the left margin of my
  Word document?
• How do I stop that pesky Office Assistant from
  popping up all the time?

27
Get free IT answers

• What are your choices?
• Figure it out on your own?
• Call your consultant?
• Call Microsoft?
• Go to a workshop?
• All of these cost you time,
• Money and lost productivity

28
Get free IT answers

• How about a way to get some of these
• Answered for free?
• 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

29
Get free IT answers

• You can!
• Once again, the internet brings us some great
  online resources
• All you need is an internet connection and a
  browser to use them

30
Get free IT answers

• Ask Jeeves at
• Ask.com
• Get answers from other people some
  professionals and some not

31
Get free IT answers

• Microsoft knowledge base
• search.support.microsoft.com/kb

32
Topic 2Protecting your business

• from terrorist computer virus attacks

33
Protection from virus attacks
Top Virus Threats

• How many of you have been hit by a virus in the
  last year?

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Protection from virus attacks

• Viruses
• Trojans
• Worms
• New ones every day
• Can bring your business down to its knees in a
  matter of minutes!
• Does anyone think virusesare over-hyped?

35
Protection from virus attacks

• Many people believe that this would be one likely
  way that terrorists could disrupt American
  businesses
• Hard to track
• Potentially very damaging
• Can spread quickly
• Can use YOU to helpspread it!

36
Terrorist attacks?
You Bet!
37
Protection from virus attacks

• How many of you have AV software?
• How many think that they have todays most recent
  virus definitions loaded?
• How many dont know?
• Where do you have the protection?
• Only takes one hole toget through

38
Where do you need protection
39
Protection from virus attacks

• Three parts to doing it right
• Prevention
• Detection
• Treatment

40
Prevention from virus attacks

• Use good anti-virus software
• Even if you got some free with your computer,
  consider buying a comprehensive solution
• Need to have it everywhere you risk exposure

41
Prevention from virus attacks

• What are some of the good ones?
• Trend Micro OfficeScan Corporate
  Editionwww.antivirus.com/products/osce/
• Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition
  7.6enterprisesecurity.symantec.com/products
• Kaspersky Anti-Virus (AVP) Business
  Optimalwww.kaspersky.com/products.asp

42
Prevention from virus attacks

• Install the appropriate AV software on every
  computer in your business and at home
• Including file server(s) and mail server(s)
• Must configure servers properly to avoid
  performance problems

43
Prevention from virus attacks

• Make sure that the
• Monitoring program is always active and running
  on every computer
• The virus definitions on every computer get
  updated every day

44
Protection from virus attacks

• Three parts to doing it right
• Prevention
• Detection
• Treatment

?

45
Detection of viruses

• Ensure monitor running on every computer
• Train your staff what to do when they get a virus
  alert
• Configure your AV software to email and page a
  central person or your consultant
• Assess the risk research if necessary
• Start treatment ASAP

46
Protection from virus attacks

• Three parts to doing it right
• Prevention
• Detection
• Treatment

?
?

47
Treatment of viruses

• React as quickly as possible
• Time is the enemy
• Disconnect the network cable from the back of the
  computer
• Write down the exact alert message

48
Treatment of viruses

• Start a scan of the infected computer
• Research the details of the virus to determine
  what else your infected computer might have
  transmitted and further infected
• Continue treatment of all infected computers

49
Questions and discussion?
50
Door prizes!

• Must be present to win
• 6 boxes of Girl Scout cookies
• 2 movie passes, Regal Cinema
• 2 ALG workshops, 189 each

51
Conclusion

• Thank you for coming!
• Remember to pick up your handouts.
• Please drive safely!