Guest blog:

At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona all the big names in security - Symantec, McAfee, Kaspersky, Sophos, AVG – were present and demonstrating their latest innovations, and they gave out a very clear message: mobile is the new battleground.

As smartphones and tablets explode in popularity they become an increasingly attractive target for malicious hackers and coders. The ones out to make a profit are drawn to these devices for their repositories of sensitive personal data, while the troublemakers simply want to cause as much mischief as possible.

At MWC we spoke to experts from McAfee and Norton about how consumers can protect themselves (http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/blog/20130308-hackers-viruses-phishing-why-all-smartphone-tablet-users-need-know-about-mobile-security), however businesses should be very concerned about the threats posed by mobile devices.

Having someone break your phone or send premium rate texts is undoubtedly a nuisance, but the problems are magnified if your compromised handset is linked to a business in any way.

Bring Your Own Disaster

In the last few years companies have increasingly embraced the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, which allows employees to use their own equipment for work purposes. It could be as simple as using a favourite smartphone in place of a company-issued handset or they may be bringing in their own tablet or laptop to connect to the company network.

While this can save a business money, and it’s argued that employees may be happier and more productive using their own hardware, it’s not difficult to see the potential issues.

Smartphones are easily lost and a great deal of damage could be done if a mobile containing business contacts or sensitive emails falls into the wrong hands. But a phone doesn’t even need to be misplaced – mobile viruses which can steal contacts, passwords and other data already exist and are in circulation, so it might only take one careless download or unlucky click to expose a business to industrial sabotage.

Mobile devices could also act as a route for targeted attacks. Most viruses and attacks are not aimed at any particular person or organisation, they just cast a wide net and hope to snare some victims, but with some expertise and a little research a hacker could use one vulnerable smartphone or tablet as a backdoor into a restricted network. An infamous example is the ‘Stuxnet’ virus which attacked Iran’s nuclear programme; allegedly designed by the US and Israel it is thought to have found its way onto systems via infected USB sticks surreptitiously given to scientists.

What’s a business to do?

The problem with mobile security at present is limited awareness. Many people do not run anti-virus or any other security tools on their devices because they simply have no understanding of the risks. We’ve become accustomed to AV on the desktop, but on a mobile phone? The average smartphone user may laugh at the idea.

Mobile security firms are trying to educate consumers but businesses need to be more proactive. It’s perfectly normal to have corporate anti-virus licenses with the software installed as standard on any laptop or desktop, so the same policy should be applied to smartphones and tablets.

And if employees wish to bring their own devices they need to be made fully aware of the dangers and how they can minimise the risk by implementing basic security measures.

Author Bio: Matt Powell is the editor for the broadband and smartphone comparison website Broadband Genie.

Listen carefully……..can you hear it? Listen again…….we can hear it. All around the world we can hear cries of ‘Arggghhhh – where has the Start button gone!’ Yes, these are the cries of desperation from people that have bought a shiny new computer with Windows 8 on it.

Microsoft has removed the much loved Start button, which we think is an epic fail on their part. But all is not lost. We have found a nice little free program that you can download which will restore it, and your faith, in Windows 8. Click here and download Classic Shell. More info can be found on the download site, but we definitely recommend it!

We are proud to announce that we have been short listed in 2 categories for the annual Chippenham Business Awards! The categories are Business Service of the Year and Business Person of the Year. The ceremony is on the 1^st March so we will keep you updated on any news, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter as we’ll be tweeting live from the event!

Click here to see the complete list of this year’s finalists.

As of today all new subscribers to Google’s very popular free version of Google Apps will have to pay the subscription rates for it. Currently this is £3.30 per user per month. Pricing info here

Whilst many people will moan about this, we don’t think it will put people off subscribing as it is only 3 quid after all! However, with its limitations and Hosted Exchange getting ever so popular it could send potential sign ups looking elsewhere. Watch this space!! And whilst you are watching this space why not check out our Hosted Exchange package

It’s pretty damn easy to turn off the User Account Control (UAC) in Windows 7. There is nothing more annoying than the computer asking you for ‘permission’ to run that program?!? Errr…..hello?! Stop bothering me and let me run it!

So here’s how to do it!

• Type UAC into the Search box and press enter. Alternatively click on Start – Control Panel – User Accounts – Change User Account Control Settings
• You will see this window:

Simply drag the slider on the left all the way to the bottom!

Where the hell is the built-in administrator account in Windows 7/Vista?!? It’s still there folks but those good people at Microsoft have just forgotten to enable it that’s all.

So here is how to enable it:

• Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > right click on Command Prompt and ‘run as administrator’
• Now type the following command ‘ net user administrator /active:yes ‘
• Press ‘enter’
• You should see this:
  
• Now simply log out or restart your PC to see the administrator account as a logon option

Guest Blog:

Firstly let me be perfectly clear, I am not an Apple fan, my wife has an Apple because apparently they are easy to use.

So now you’ve finished tearing your hair out here are my top tips for getting a pretty signature that would take you 2 seconds in Outlook or any other PC application, onto your shiny desktop ornament or lap based shiny ornament otherwise know as an Apple Mac

1. I found this easier to do the first part on a PC because I know my way round a PC so here goes, step 1 create your HTML signature in application of choice. I used Notepad because I’m old school.

<br />
 <br />
 <div id="sig" style="min-width: 960px; min-height: 82px; line-height: 18px; margin: 6px 0; padding: 8px; border-top: 1px #999999 dotted; border-bottom: 1px #999999 dotted; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif; font-size: 12px; color: #999999; " >
 <a href="LOCATIONOFYOURLOGO" title="longcroftcathotel.co.uk"> <img src="http://longcroftcathotel.co.uk/img/layout/logo.png" alt="Longcroft Cat Hotel" style="float: left; padding: 2px 6px 0 0; border: none;"></a> <div style="padding: 6px 0 0 0"> <span style="font-size:14px"> <strong style="color: #333333">Abi Purser</strong>, Founder</span><br /> <strong><a href="http://longcroftcathotel.co.uk" title="longcroftcathotel.co.uk" style="color: #666666; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 1px #cccccc dotted;">Longcroft Luxury Cat Hotel Group</a></strong><br /> 23 Longcroft Lane, Welwyn Garden City, Herts | Telephone:             01707 832000       <br /><a href="http://twitter.com/thecathotel"><img src="http://LOCATIONOFYOURTWITTERICON" alt="Twitter" width="32" height="32" style="float: left; margin: 2px 4px 0 0; border: none;"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Longcroft-Luxury-Cat-Hotel/139818322709311"><img src="LOCATIONOFYOURFACEBOOKICON" alt="Facebook" style="float: left; margin: 2px 4px 0 0; border: none;"></a> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=79341328&locale=en_US&trk=tyah"><img src="LOCATIONOFYOURLINKEDINICON" alt="Linked In" style="float: left; margin: 2px 4px 0 0; border: none;"></a> </div> <div style="clear:both"></div> </div> <br /> <br /> 

Was the code I used. Replace all the bits you want to replace, so links to images, logos, social media icons (if any). Equally you can create your own look and feel totally up to you at this point.

Do not add any <head><body> etc tags. It’s just plain layout code. You can use tables, divs etc any stylesheet (CSS) stuff you do has to be inline as you can see above.

2. So you have your code, save it as something memorable, if like me you’re doing this on a PC whack it on a USB stick and plug that into your Mac.

3. Welcome to their world. First off make a signature in Apple Mail. Go to mail, then preferences > signatures. Create any old signature with random stuff, call it something meaningful as you’ll be overwriting with yourt new shiny one shortly (I say shortly make some tea, it’s not that short)

4. Navigate to your USB stick (click finder, show all folders and find your USB stick, it’s sort of like windows explorer honest)

5. Drag your HTML file onto the Safari icon on the toolbar strip thing at the bottom.

6. Now click File > Save as and save the file as a webarchive. Name is something simple so you can find it again. I saved it in Documents as that was the folder I could find most regularly

7. Now this is the fun bit…go to Finder again (the one that looks like windows explorer) open a new finder window. Then hit Finder, click Go > Go To folder and copy and paste this into the searchg bar thing : ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Signatures/

8. A window will pop up with some funny numbered things in there. If you’ve got lots in there from your numerous failed attempts at making shiny signatures, double click them and find the one you want to replace with the shiny.

9. Once you’ve found it, click it once so you’re kind of editing the name of it, make sure it’s all highlighted (should be by default) then hit Command + C (copy). You can now right click that file and move to trash or if you’ve still not discovered how to right click (I know right!) drag it over to the trash bin

10. Navigate to your documents folder, find your aptly named shiny signature which should have the file extension web (it’ll say web over on the right somewhere)

11. Click on the filename of that one and paste in your weird numbers.

12. Drag that file (it’s easier if you have two finder windows open for this bit one with the documents folder and one with the ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Signatures/ folder open) into the signatures folder.

13. Open Apple Mail > go to preferences signatures, it’ll show you a preview of your shiny sig with broken images DO NOT PANIC!!

14. Compose a new mail and TADA!! your shiny signature.
That was easy wasn’t it!

Matt Purser is the Director of www.edgeward.co.uk building awesome web stuff for awesome clients….

There is a new buzz word on the street. Designed to confuse and baffle the millions of people out there that have just got used to the term ‘The Cloud’. It’s a word that will strike fear into the heart of many techies and will have everyone racing to Google and Wiki to find out exactly what it is. The word is Hybrid Cloud.

Not so scary at all is it? In fact most of you are already using it in a basic form. You could class Dropbox as Hybrid-Cloud in a crude sense. Wiki describes it as ‘A hybrid cloud is a cloud computing infrastructure composed of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability’………whatever…..

There are many products, of which some are really very, very good. One of these is called Egnyte which we will be reviewing shortly. These products are replacing servers for small businesses everywhere, and are cost effective, user friendly and maintenance free. No more £90 p/h charges for your server guy eh?!

You can give access rights to certain individuals such as Read, Read/Write, Read/Write/Delete and create 100’s of users for a small monthly fee.

We will give you more details in our upcoming review, but basically…….Hybrid Cloud is comprised of a cloud server and a local or private cloud. Simples.

We are getting excited here at The IT Guy HQ. No it’s not because Krispy Kreme have opened a new store nearby, it’s something much better! In fact this deserves a drum roll [insert drum roll sound here] …… we are going to be opening our very own Laptop/PC repair drop in service! The drop-in centre will service Wiltshire and nearby counties as well as operate a courier service for national coverage too.

We will be able to diagnose and fix all hardware problems including laptop screens,  motherboard replacements, fans, RAM, hard drives, power supplies and much more. We will also carry out laptop/PC upgrades too.

It’s going to be awesome, so keep your eyes peeled and we’ll keep you updated on progress #happydays