Hackers Are Now Targeting Macs

Until recently (i.e. the past year), Mac computer users have long enjoyed relative freedom from hacker attacks; however, researchers at Symantec Corporation say online criminals are now setting their sites on Mac users.

   Online porn hunters are the latest target. Visitors to certain web sites are led to believe they can download a free video player when in fact they are installing malicious code onto their Macs.

   Once the users authorize the transaction, the hackers can redirect the users future browsing to fraudulent web sites and possibly steal the user’s information or passwords. Sometimes they simply send ads for other pornographic web sites. This results in thousands of dollars in income for the criminals.

   While you may think that Macs are essentially more secure than PCs because they are built better, security experts would argue differently. They believe that the Mac is actually no more secure than a PC. In fact, they note that the relatively low number of viruses, exploits and other cyber attacks directed at Mac users is due to Apple’s relatively small share of the computer market.

“I don’t think that the Mac OS is more secure than Windows — I think it is safer than Windows because there are less people trying to attack it. There is a big difference,” Natalie Lambert, a senior analyst at Forrester Research shared with MacNewsWorld.

   With that said, the fact remains that for every single attack on a Mac, there are at least 100 attacks on Windows-based systems.

   So what should you do if you own a Mac?

• Use the same safe online surfing practices as PC users
• Keep your anti-virus software up-to-date
• Never open strange e-mails from unknown sources
• Only verify user names and passwords by phone with your bank or other financial institutions.

5 Keys To Success In 2012

Just before Christmas I received a box from a company in the Bay Area. I had never heard of them nor was I sure why or how they got my name.
Well, inside the box was a nice looking 8 ½ x 11 full color brochure and a lot of fortune cookies.

Two of the cookies had especially good messages (i.e. fortunes) inside them.

“Marketing and Sales alignment isn’t hard when both sides have common goals.”

“Stop procrastinating…starting tomorrow.”

What made these fortunes worthy of being mentioned in this article is that I manage and oversee all of the marketing and work with Phil on sales. The second “fortune” reminds me of a saying that my 2^nd grade teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson, used to say -“Tomorrow never comes.” Also, the word ‘procrastination’ is the English derivative of two Latin words (pro meaning “for” and cras meaning “tomorrow”). Lest we should not forget that one of Scarlett O’Hara’s famous lines was “Tomorrow is another day.”

 We need to get past the procrastination and putting off of tasks — work or personal — by stopping, taking a moment or two and being realistic about what can be done in the neces-sary time frame and if it is worthy of being a high priority, impactful task. Instead of setting those big and oftentimes overwhelming goals for the New Year, I recommend making monthly goals. They could certainly “add up” to form the big yearly goal. A monthly or shorter term goal should still be a challenge; however, it can deliver a more stress free environ-ment for achieving it. (Maybe this is why I always went to schools that were on a semester system and not a quarterly
or trimester system.)

My Top Things To Accomplish in 2012:

Key #1. Stay Connected With Family, Friends And Clients.

Life is just too short not to. No counting is allowed or thoughts of reciprocity (i.e. I haven’t heard from so and so for years). If you want to maintain or jumpstart a relationship of any kind, take the first step and you will be grateful that you did.     

Key #2: Implement The Right Things At Work.
It’s important to focus on the activities that will help you reach those critical monthly and annual goals.

#3: Think And Be Healthy.

It is a mindset and a challenging one at that. As I wrote this article, I was switching back and forth between eating two clementines and M&Ms. I should have just had 5 M&Ms instead of the 15 or so. Aargh. Be consistent in exercising and mix it up so it doesn’t get too boring. If you don’t enjoy exercising or eating healthier, remind yourself of the end results (i.e. the outcome).

Key #4: Do Great Things With Rotary.

This is a big year for me because I am assuming the Rotary District 5450 Membership Chair role and responsibilities. I’m excited and nervous all at the same time. There is a rebuilding effort at my local Denver Cherry Creek Rotary club to boot. Also, my pet project, American Student Ambassadors, has launched and is moving forward slowly and surely over in Florence, Italy. Eventually, the goal is to expand to more hubs of study for American students and programs.

Key #5: Read, Read and Read A Bit More.

I continue to purchase more books (hardcover and Kindle) and yet I don’t get them read. 2012 is the year to turn this around. If I could just commit to reading one (1) book a month, that would be a significant result and it would sure make me feel better when I look at my full bookshelves and Kindle books.

Three New Year’s Resolutions To Make In 2012

2012 has arrived!  Have you made any New Years resolutions yet? 

Besides resolving to spend more time with family and friends, getting fit, and getting organized, have you made any New Years resolutions for your business?

Looking at your current computer network and reviewing your past year’s network support and services, are you saying to yourself “I’m not going to let this happen again in 2012”! 
Do any of your New Year’s resolutions include dealing with continually pesky computer network issues?

Do Your Resolutions Look Anything Like This?

›   RESOLVED, double pinkie shake, I WILL get my critical company data automatically backed up and offsite daily.  Whether through fire, natural disaster, tape failure, or just human error, one day I might lose all of my company data which will cost me plenty.

›   RESOLVED, I will finally STOP do-it-yourself computer repair.  Few business people would attempt do-it-yourself insurance; so why do I or any super-user on my staff think that we can keep up with the increasingly complex, fast changing demands of a computer network?

›   RESOLVED, I will fire my current IT guy who doesn’t return my phone calls, makes me wait hours – even days – before he actually comes out to see us, charges more than we expected, and then doesn’t follow up to make sure that we are satisfied with the work.

FREE Computer Network Assessment Gets You On The Road To Keeping Your Resolutions And Eliminating Your Day-To-Day Computer Headaches

My name is Phil Bush and I am the President of CMIT Solutions of Denver. For almost eight years now we have been helping small to mid-size business owners like you eliminate common computer and network problems quickly and affordably so you can focus on doing what you do best: running your business.

If you haven’t had a recent assessment of your network’s back-up system and security, CMIT Denver will do it for Free** (for businesses with 10 or more computers), no strings attached. This assessment is valued at $397 and that doesn’t include the intangible value of feeling secure that your business is protected and secure.

For FREE, We Will Come To Your Office And…

• Check your firewall’s security settings to make sure you are protected from the latest hacker attacks, worms and viruses.
  
• Scan and remove spyware that is secretly stealing your company’s bandwidth, jeopardizing the speed of your computer system, and embezzling confidential information about you, your employees, and your business.
  
• Check your network’s back-up system to ensure it is working properly and accurately backing up all of the critical files and information you never want to lose.
  
• Verify that you have the most up-to-date security patches installed properly; miss one critical update and you’re a “sitting duck”.
  
• Diagnose slow, unstable PCs.
  
• Perform a quick network “tune-up” to make programs and files load faster.

** You will need to contact me, Phil Bush by February 10, 2012 to take advantage of this offer. Give me a call at 303-756-2648 or send me an email.

4 Keys To Making A Great Pizza and Sustaining Long Lasting Friendships

During a four hour layover at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, I had plenty of time to reflect on my experiences of my 10 days in Florence, Italy. I attended two Rotary club meetings, 5 meetings with American study abroad university programs, spent quality time with 4 long-time (28 years and longer) friends and logged a lot of steps on my FitBit pedometer. OK, I admit that I enjoyed some pretty good food too.

Personal reflections:

• I observed that an international organization such as Rotary can have the same mission and purpose, yet still do some things differently that adapt to the culture of the country or environment.
• American students in Florence look and sound a bit dif-ferent from my experience of 30 years ago; however, they
  are there for the same reason – to expand their horizons.
• Sustaining long-lasting friendships doesn’t just happen. There is a lot of care and nurturing and “give and take” from both parties.
• To make a great pizza, you need a superb Pizzaiolo (pizza chef below on left) as well as an enthusiastic team of helpers (below on right) and a great wood burning oven.

         

Think  about how my 4 reflections from my recent trip relate to you and your company’s success. How do the ideas transpose? What does it mean for you? Is there something to change in how you will do or look at things for 2012?

My Italian friend, Daniela, her husband Fabio (the Pizzaiolo) and their friends consistently meet every Saturday night to make pizza (at least 25) and to gather as friends. The keys for a successful pizza outing (i.e. meeting) seem to include pur-chasing quality ingredients, having the wood burning oven at the right temperature, the right leader as Pizzaiolo and a team of (technically) experienced workers. Last and far from least is that all participants have a great time and want to keep coming back each and every Saturday night (client retention). I would enjoy being part of this team; I wonder if they give me an honorary membership.

Put People First And Increase Your Productivity

Now more than ever businesses need to improve productivity, be more efficient with their time, and respond quickly to customers’ needs to stay competitive.  Connecting Windows® Phone  to the cloud offering of Microsoft® Office 365 can help your company affordably improve communication and sharing information, whether in the office or on the go.**

Windows Phone is uniquely designed to bring together what you care about most. It is the only phone with Microsoft Outlook® Mobile and Microsoft Office Mobile built in. With the new Windows Phone you can work seamlessly with Office 365 email, instant messaging, and team sites. 

Stay organized and connected
Organize work, connect with people, and get things done faster with seamless email, instant messaging, and document sharing on Office 365.

• Experience the fastest setup to Office 365 on the Windows Phone
• Get things done faster with email, calendar, contacts, and tasks through Outlook Mobile
• Reach coworkers in real time with voice, instant messaging, SMS, or email

Act on the latest information
Enable workers to respond to business needs faster by giving them anywhere access to colleagues, contacts, and latest documents on Office 365.

• Access and share important information with clients and partners
• Keep documents up-to-date with Office Mobile
• Manage your team’s important documents online by using SharePoint® Workspace Mobile to ensure that the latest versions are always at hand

Protect your business information
Help protect information with password policies and remote wiping capability while retaining documents synced and stored on Office 365.

We’d love to tell you more about Windows Phone! I enjoy using mine and having tight integration with my Microsoft Office programs.  Contact us today! And have the opportunity to get a new Windows Phone at a discounted price at our local Microsoft Store at Park Meadows.

Making Your List And Checking It Twice

In previous articles and blog posts, I have written about Microsoft’s OneNote application. It’s really user friendly and will remind you of the good ol’ days of using a 3 ring binder with dividers. As Microsoft wrote in a recent email “The use of Microsoft OneNote can be highly addictive.” It’s easy to use and not so easy to stop using. And, you can sync it into the cloud with Windows SkyDrive. I even have OneNote on my Windows 7.5 cell phone.

Once you start using OneNote to create digital notebooks of your notes and ideas, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Before you know it, you’ll be looking for reasons to create more notebooks – work or school reports, home projects, and who knows what else.

What will hook you on OneNote:

• OneNote helps bring together your digital information (notes, photos, videos, web links, etc.) into easy-to-edit notebooks.
• OneNote makes it easy to share your notebooks and work together in real time with other OneNote users.
• The OneNote Web App and OneNote Mobile allow you to access and add to your notebooks from virtually anywhere.*

If your office has not yet standardized (i.e. upgraded) to Office 2010, you still have two weeks left to buy the licenses [ CMIT Solutions can help] and take advantage of the tax breaks for software purchases using Section 179.

Happy Holidays 2011 From CMIT Solutions

My colleague Evan Stein, President of CMIT Solutions of Wall Street & Grand Central (he told me to take full credit and I just couldn’t), used the following greeting in his holiday cards to his clients. I immediately asked permission to share it with my readers. Enjoy and wishing you a happy and healthy holiday season!

Twas the night of the deadline
The systems were choking
I had twelve programs open
My computer was smoking

Emails wouldn’t send
Excel wouldn’t add
My desktop had blue-screened
Someone stole my iPad

From down the hall “Just reboot it”
Someone shouted aloud
But there’s no server here
We had moved to the cloud

But then on my screen
The cursor did fly
A Log Me In session
It was the IT guy

He wiped out the virus
And patched Windows 7
Upgraded my iTunes
While Jobs smiled down from heaven

And I heard him tweet loudly
As he ended our call
“Whether Mac or PC
Happy Holidays to All”

3 Ways To Know Your Numbers

Yesterday (November 14th) was World Diabetes Day according to my Rotarian magazine. This hits home with the Bush family since my husband and business partner, Phil, has had Type I diabetes (often known as juvenile diabetes) for 35 years. Fortunately, he is good with numbers and making calculations which helps in managing and controlling his diabetes. He also has to be good at tracking and managing the numbers, especially the business critical ones, for our CMIT Denver operation.

In the October e-newsletter, I wrote about utilizing the Red-Yellow-Green tracking system for stated goals (thanks to Patrick Thean). Every entrepreneur is taught and often reminded about the importance of setting goals, tracking them and measuring what you have tracked. Phil has an insulin pump and glucose monitor to help him track the amount of insulin that is injected and what his glucose/sugar levels are. If he starts feeling not quite right, he knows that something went amiss with his calculations or the effect of food or exercise.

Here are 3 Ways To Know Your Numbers:

1. It really helps to set goals/numbers for each activity that will move you closer to your larger goal, the BIG goal which needs to be S-M-A-R-T. What numbers would fit into the Red-Yellow-Green tracking sheet to give you a visual of how you are performing in relation to the goal. Think of what a “good” or “Green” goal is for each activity.
2. Schedule a time IN ADVANCE (whether it is daily, weekly or monthly) to review the status of each goal and how the related numbers look. It works best if you set aside a specific day and time frame to review numbers when it’s on a less frequent basis. It really depends on the criticality of following the numbers. If you have a goal of “x” number of prospect appointments each week, it probably is not wise to only look at the results on a monthly basis.  However, if you are tracking marketing expenses like I do, there is no need to review and understand the P&L for this more than monthly.
3. Have someone who understands your business, can question or challenge you on the numbers (good or bad) and will hold you accountable. I have written about this too many times to count (Haha) and cannot stress enough the importance and impact of such an activity.

There are more ways to know your numbers like making sure you have the reporting tools and processes in place so you can look at the numbers in different formats. Decide which is best for the goals you have set and stick with it.

The 3 F’s: Fun, Food and Florence

Prior to returning to Florence, I had a few friends ask me how many times I have been there? Who’s counting anyway? I was counting the days leading up to last week’s departure, but I haven’t kept track of my visits to Florence. Maybe because, for me, the number will never be high enough.

I should have been counting/measuring since I just wrote an article about knowing your metrics and numbers to increase success. My best guesstimate is 12 times which includes the 2 times I lived there. Let’s just have a quick bit of fun with this article.

The 3 F’s: Fun, Food and Florence

FUN: It’s fun walking around (perambulating) and soaking in this historic city. And, it doesn’t hurt to stop every so often while to nourish yourself so you can walk just a little bit more. I have fun revisiting the neighborhoods where I used to live in Florence which includes the different vendors. Myhusband Phil recounts the story of how we walked into the “pencil shop” as he calls it where I used to buy my school supplies and the couple remembered me after many years. The best part of all is visiting the friends that I made while living in Florence ranging from my school administrator, my Italian language teacher, landlords and friends I made during my time there with whom I am still close.

FOOD: The author of “Eat, Pray, Love” knew that Italy would be the “Eat” part. I love the fresh homemade pasta, the good gelato (ever been to Vivoli gelateria near Santa Croce), and the old eating haunts like Palle d’Oro trattoria off the San Lorenzo marketplace. I have no doubt that I will have a meal at the counter for lunch one day this week. And, the homemade Italian meals with my friends tops it all off – nothing can surpass the food and the experience.  In 2009 when I took my family to Florence my son Aaron loved seeing all the foods (raw and cooked) at the Mercato Centrale. He was taking pictures of pigs ears and more. If you are in Denver and would like an authentic taste of Florence, head over to Parisi Trattoria where the food, the portion size and the price are all great.

FLORENCE: The city of Florence or Firenze is more than 2000 (that’s 20 centuries) years old. One of its symbols is the giglio (lily) often seen in the U.S. as the fleur d’lys and the symbol of New Orleans. Florence was the heart of the Renaissance (rebirth) and walking around you quickly discover why. The Medici family introduced formalized banking to the world and was the de facto ruling family of Florence in the 1400 and 1500′s. Also, it has the largest concentration in Italy of American students studying abroad and that is what has brought me back to Florence. Check out my Rotary project, American Student Ambassadors.

Arrivederci for now and watch for my December e-newsletter that could easily have a follow up article to my Florentine adventure.

Creating Simplicity With One Tiny Bite At A Time

Have you ever heard about taking one tiny bite of the elephant (i.e. big task or project) at a time?

During the end of the year “frenzy” in setting goals for the new year and to be honest any time of the year, it’s really important to be cognizant of goals that you set and how you intend to achieve them. Even something as simple as buying gifts for the holiday season can be daunting. My CMIT Pacesetters mastermind group recently shared our individual office key goals and initiatives for 2012. I think that putting them down in ink (pen or printer) and sharing them with others makes a big difference. However, if you don’t hold yourself accountable for necessary actions to achieve the (SMART) goals and if your peers don’t hold you accoutable, then the impact isn’t there as much.

On my monthly Captain’s Call for the marketing accountability groups, we discussed the difference between putting down “tasks” as goals (e.g. select color of envelope for newsletter) versus the BIG GOAL, sometimes known as a BHAG or SHAG (Big or Somewhat Hairy Audacious Goal). On a weekly, granular basis think about the most important thing that you can do to move you closer to your big goal. The “I hope to get it done” verbiage doesn’t cut it. If you need to downsize a weekly item due to extraneous things happening (like a Rotary trip to Italy), then do so. Better to meet the smaller goal that is part of the big goal than to fail in accomplishing your weekly action item.

When I was assembling my Rotary project, I wrote down all the different things that I would need to think about. Then, I applied a timeline for different actions to be completed. I couldn’t book an international flight the week before you plan to depart. I booked it in July and then moved forward with the other key elements for this project. The same could be said for a deployment of a new solution or for hiring a new employee. The process and a realistic one at that must be in place to guide you to a successful result.

Keep It Simple and just get one teeny, tiny bite at a time of that sacred “elephant.” Check out the slideshow provided by Real Simple (I love the magazine and the eblasts) by clicking  Tiny Bite.