Recently we've been hearing about several customers getting hit with ransomware software. This has prompted me to put together a quick blog post warning about this growing trend. First off, here's a definition. Ransomware is software that infects a computer and then locks files making them unreadable. The software then asks for money to unlock the files - hense the name Ransomware. An encryption key is sent back which makes the files available again. The big problem is most antivirus software

Recently I got back from a much needed vacation and was lamenting about how much work and emails had piled up in my absence.  Yes, I have an amazing crew who handled the majority of the calls, but they too were very grateful we were back because we as the owners were the ones with some of the answers or who several of our clients insisted were the only ones to talk with. Sigh. That’s when you start asking yourself is it worth it as a small business owner to take a vacation because of

Got Windows 10?  Act! Not Starting?  Try this! We have been getting quite a few calls lately from clients who are finding out the hard way that their operating system just got upgraded to Windows 10. Well isn’t that nice? Microsoft is now making it happen automatically and many are getting caught of guard.   What to do?  Turn off automatic updates in Windows for one.  If Windows 10 is here, then time to upgrade Act!.  The latest version of Act! is designed to

You may have heard about SSL, and you may even have SSL implemented on your website already. If your customers enter sensitive credit card information or other private data on your website then SSL is a must. If you haven’t heard of SSL, we’ll answer basic questions in this article and provide resources for you to learn even more. What is SSL Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) [the precursor to Secure Sockets Layer] are both

Microsoft has been aggressive in upgrading computers to Windows 10 - often without you realizing you did give them permission - you just didn't realize you did.  So, if you, like many others, has just recently found you are now on Windows 10 and want to go back here's what you do.   NOTE - this only works for one month after the initial upgrade - so hurry if you want this to be relatively painless. Here's the STEP BY STEP process - it should take you back to where you were

ACT for the Web is a pretty cool application. It is a great way to access your ACT data from a browser which is convenient when you are not near your main computer. In the process of working with the tool, we’ve found a few tricks and recommendations on improving the installation and performance. I wrote it up in a document and thought I’d post it here as a blog article. Note – this is going to be long but the idea is you can reference it later or print it for future review. Overview The

If you have been getting emails from Microsoft advising you to upgrade, you may not have noticed some of them are requiring you to opt out of the upgrade. If you do not, our friends (and I use that term loosely) in Redmond will do it for you. Automatically. Overnight. Yes. Really.   This just happened to one of our clients and needless to say, some things stopped working.  Moving to Windows 10 needs to be a planned process - ensuring that you have gone to the Microsoft site and made

Chattanooga, TN, March 22, 2016– Patricia Egen Consulting, LLC is pleased to announce that Wendy Cummins will join us as Senior Consultant. “Wendy is a networking, email, SPAM and Web "guru" who compliments our team with expertise that is in high demand. Her understanding of Active Directory, DNS and networking is vital as we continue to roll-out web and hosted implementations. ” – Patricia Egen, President of Patricia Egen Consulting. For the past 14 years, Wendy has