What?  Waitaminute.  Of course my business accepts credit cards.  Who pays with cash or check these days?  But what do you mean, my ‘business could be at risk?’

It’s called ‘PCI Compliance.’ If that phrase is vague or altogether absent from your nomenclature, I’ll break it down to a 10,000-foot view for you.  Many of you readers may know exactly what I’m talking about, but for those of you that don’t…

PCI (Payment Card Industry) Compliance is the security standard by which merchants are bound to securely process a credit card transaction.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a dentist, CPA, litigator, architect or a plumber.  The standard represents a set of common industry tools and measurements to ensure secure handling of sensitive information.  In specific terms, it means your business meets a requisite standard in your security management, software, procedures, policies, network architecture and other critical security points.

Oh right.  Yeah.  We’re good there.  We set ourselves up right from the beginning.  We can take all the major cards and we set it up right when we started.

Guess what.  If that’s your actual answer, then your company might be in greater threat than you can imagine.  The compliance standard is a growing, changing security measure that incorporates the many evolutions in technology that occur throughout the given year.  Would you be willing to put your business to the risk of falling short of those compliance standards?

But we’re just a small business.  What hacker is going to look at MY practice to go fishing for credit card information?  It’s just not very likely.

Maybe.  Maybe not.  Who can truly anticipate the hacker mentality?  But if you live in a relatively ‘safe’ neighborhood…how often do you choose to leave your doors unlocked?  The truth is that hackers don’t look to simply focus their attacks on industry monoliths.  As cited by a prominent official in data security only last month, they generally do not look to bother with highly defended systems, but hackers pursue “…systems they can exploit.”

So…how many clients do you have?  How comfortable would you be with all of your credit card information being stolen from your client base because of having outdated security measures in place?  What about all of the penalties and fines that would be imposed upon you for falling short of those standards?  Is that a risk you want to take?

The professionals at QeH2 know what it takes make and keep you PCI Compliant.  No, we’re not the PCI Compliant police.  The enforcement of your compliance is managed through your various credit card companies.  But we’re the guys who can take a look at your network environment and tell you whether you’re at risk or not.  And if you didn’t happen to notice the landing page of our website, that’s a service we can provide to you for FREE!

So…if you’re a business that already has an IT support provider in place…when is the last time you made sure they were doing more than just slapping patches and band aids on your environment?  Wouldn’t you like to think that your expense for IT support is instead an investment?  Money spent with a trusted partner to protect your business and help keep it profitable?

The professionals at QeH2 can identify all the concerns you do and don’t know about.  And in doing so, we can take that information and align efforts with your business goals to make IT support and IT services an area of value to your business…no matter what that business is.

Reach out to us.  Drop us a call or shoot us an email.  But take advantage of our offer to explore any weaknesses you may have below the waterline.  Contact us today.

Do you remember a time when a mobile phone was a novelty? A physically cumbersome item that could at one time have been observed as a status symbol? What about these days? How valuable is your phone to you, with all of your data, contacts and applications?

I would dare to say that most people feel uncomfortable, “lost,” at the realization they’ve left their phone at home and started their day without it. What if you actually did lose your phone and were without email connection, personal banking, pictures or other things that are important to you? You would be worried about the monetary value of the phone but more so what you have lost with it. How quickly would you look to recover your abilities to access what you could, and willingly lose forever what you might?

The reality is that the mobile phone is no longer just a mobile phone. As a primary form of technology these days, it represents the larger means by which we achieve the necessary outcome of so many things. Information technology. It’s interwoven with not just our lives but our business. Everyone knows that.

In modern business, no matter your industry, information technology is pervasive to your practice. And never has it been more vital to your business than it is today. But where it has been regarded as an expense in doing business, information technology is not so much an expense as it is an asset. Much with the value of your mobile phone.

Consider your Business Continuity Plan. You know…the means by which critical activities performed in any business ensure functions remain operable and available. Not a Disaster Recovery Plan. That’s not the same thing. But it is an essential part of your Business Continuity!

“So what’s so important about a Business Continuity Plan?” you might say. “We’re all professionals and we know how to run our business successfully. We perform our regular backups and stay on top of late technology trends. We know what to do.”

But the unexpected happens. Earthquakes, hurricanes and tornados do happen in some places in the country. The likelihood of a wildfire may be pretty infrequent in Florida, though it has been a recent concern here in Colorado. But what if a massive water leak in the office above you puts four inches of water into your office space overnight? What about something as simple and common as a power outage? These are not threats dependent on where your business is geographically established. They could happen anywhere at any time.

So when an unexpected disruption does occur—not if—have you determined how your business will recover? How much money or security or in what industry or legal violations might you be while your practice scrambles to put itself back into operation?

Your Business Continuity Plan comprises a number of components all surrounding the methodology of conducting day-to-day business. It is established on a Business Impact Analysis, the identification of all business functions within an organization and then assigning a priority to each of these. Mission-critical systems, financial operations, data backup and recovery, regulatory reporting—most roles in any company require and affect these functions and others every day. The Business Impact Analysis assigns the criticality of specific functions and the impact any disruption bears against those functions, as well as the order and time frame in which any of those functions must be restored in the event of downtime for any reason.

Further, business in general is governed by various standards, regulations and laws—no matter your industry. These laws are in turn audited, and a failed audit can have a nasty impact on your business. Your day-to-day business operation touches all areas relating to an audit: your customers, vendors, financial transactions, et cetera. And all of these areas are covered in an effective Business Continuity Plan.

Having a Business Continuity Plan is essential to practicing responsible business!

So, just how important is information technology to an effective Business Continuity Plan? How can it be utilized as an asset rather than just an expense in doing business?

Everyone knows that in business time is money. But effectiveness is time. And information technology has long become dovetailed with producing effective day-to-day business. But it is ever more essential…critical…vital…valuable…when it comes to creating and implementing and exercising an effective Business Continuity Plan.

The business leadership with QeH2 understands the importance of making business effective. We have the experience and resource to help you design and implement a Business Continuity Plan through the information technology of your business environment.

Our Denver IT support services can stabilize your environment, ensuring it becomes a solid foundation upon which you can rely with your Business Continuity Plan. We can help optimize your business IT systems and streamline your IT infrastructure. Additionally, our professional services can advise and assist you in devising priority and realistic time frames in which your business can restore critical functions. Still further, we can respond with immediate on-site support to help you navigate an unexpected disruption.

When that moment of panic comes when you misplace or lose your mobile phone, how will you feel when the greater panic arrives with disruption to your business practice?

Don’t be in that position where you are lost, with no Business Continuity Plan to put your business back together. Contact QeH2 and get your plans in place to protect your business today.

How important is your business to you?

As a society, we are long accustomed to the importance of health, auto or long-term insurance.  All of these measures surrounding a plan for the expected and unexpected alike.  And we make these responsible decisions to ensure that our needs and the needs of our family are protected.  But what sort of plan do you have for your business where disaster recovery is concerned?

It is critical to understand that performing regular data backups does not mean you have an effective disaster recovery plan in place.  “Sure, we do regular backups all the time,” might be what you say with conviction.  But have you ever been put in a position where you had to rely on one of those backups?  Was the data in that backup current?  Was it the only copy?  Was that data accurately captured in that backup in order for it to be restored?  How long was your business in a headlock before restoration was achieved?  Was any data lost in the process?  How much money was lost in that down time?

Reputable national reporting agencies reveal staggering statistics toward the critical value of an effective disaster recovery plan.  Only an approximate third of small businesses have a comprehensive plan in place, and the survival rate of companies among those without a plan is less than 10%!  Sadly, these companies falling into that larger statistic are out of business in as little as only a few days.

Think of it!  Whatever your line of business may be, your IT solution manages your payroll, your AP and AR, you valuable client information, where HIPAA, SOX and PCI compliances may govern your responsibility—all lost!

A number of factors can be identified in a system failure whether or not an effective disaster recovery plan happens to be in place.  But it might surprise you to learn that the majority of threats are not among the very real possibilities within system failure or even natural disaster.  Whether deliberate or unintended, they are often instead to be found among employees and insiders!

With backup and restoration being of pivotal importance to any plan, how long can your business afford to be without your information?  What if you don’t have a plan at all?  And if you do, when was the last time you even tested your backup for successful restoration?  A plan that is never tested cannot be relied upon.

The bottom line is that your business cannot afford to have its hands tied by ineffective measures.  The threat of system failure or natural disaster or malicious attack is a matter of when rather than a matter of if.

The professionals within QeH2 comprise intelligent, experienced and committed individuals that understand what it takes to design, implement and exercise an effective disaster recovery plan.  We understand the importance of your business, the critical value of your business information and how to protect it all.  Together, we can follow the necessary measures to protect the health of your business against any one of the many possibilities that threaten your business every day.

Contact QeH2 to discuss your business needs.  Protect your business today.

If you have a large amount of data that you can’t afford to loose, like most of us, Denver offsite backup is something to be considered. Offsite backup acts as a safeguard for your information.

Denver offsite backup is exactly what it sounds like, that you have a backup set of data that is nowhere near your main place of business. Some or all of your data (you can choose what data you want backed up) is stored on a server that is physically far away from your office. That way, in the event of a catastrophe, you will not lose every shred of your important data.

With Denver offsite data backup you can control how often your data is transmitted to the offsite server. It’s common to backup data every day or every week, depending on the amount of data used. Some large companies make a habit of backing up data multiple times per day.

Offsite backup can take several forms, one of the most common forms being a data storage facility. This can be as large as its needed to be to store all of the data that you want to be backed up.

Of course there are many different types of software available to make the data offsite backup process easier. This software is often customizable, so you’re able to tailor the process to fit your company’s specific needs. The software applications can usually be set as well to do the data backup automatically, at regular intervals that you set, so that the offsite backup process basically runs itself with little maintenance.

If you are a company with valuable information, offsite data backup is something that you should implement into your technology policy.  We specialize in Denver offsite backup and would be happy to help you with this process. Contact us today!

As we all know, the floods in Thailand have caused widespread chaos throughout the country, leading to hundreds of deaths. Thailand is the world’s second largest maker of hard disk drives (HDD) after China, and about half of global output takes place there. The damage caused by flooding could keep factories closed or hobbled for months, effecting the world output of magnetic hard drives by as much as 30%.

The total demand for HDDs is presently around 660 million units annually.  Research suggests that PC makers have less back-up inventory than usual, creating a shortage. This issue started hitting these companies around November/December, and are still playing catch up because of the holiday season.

The recovery has been slow, and HD supplies at worldwide computer manufacturers are running out. Heaviest impact is on laptop drives, which outsell desktop units. The electronics industry is bracing for the shortfall. It looks like it will cost them sales of 23 million computers this year. First-quarter sales are falling 11.6%.

What this means for consumers is if you are planning to buy a laptop computer, get busy now. The inventory decline means at best, there will be fewer models available, and at worst, there won’t be any. Of course, basic supply and demand principles explain that the hard disk drive shortage will drive up prices.

Having your business in the cloud has many benefits, including substantial cost savings, greater security to increased flexibility and a greener footprint for your organization.

Cloud computing has a business model that is designed similarly to that used by utility companies, users only pay for the amount of services they consume and only when they need them, while the provider company bears the responsibility and expense for building and maintaining the network.

Any business can benefit from cloud computing, regardless of its size.  Most businesses see a dramatic cost saving and ROI with cloud, although it can be a little more expensive in year one, solely due to the change in technology, the lifetime cost after that is significantly less than any on-premise solution. One of the biggest benefits of cloud computing is the amount of flexibility it provides. It’s very easy to scale IT resources up or down as needed.

3 basic “levels” of cloud services:

• With Software as a Service (SaaS), users access applications in the cloud infrastructure, and the applications are managed and controlled solely by the service provider.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS) gives more control to end users, allowing them to deploy their own applications in the cloud but with the service provider maintaining control over the underlying infrastructure.
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) charges end users an on-demand fee to rent “virtualized hardware,” but gives them full control over the operating system, processing, storage, networks, and applications.

5 characteristics that really define cloud computing:

• On-demand self-service. Users can provision the computing resources on their own, without the interaction of a third party.
• Broad network access. Capabilities are broadly available through standard ubiquitous Internet connections, via both traditional (thick client) and Web-based (thin client) software applications.
• Resource pooling. The provider’s resources (processing capacity, memory, bandwidth, storage, etc.) are pooled to serve multiple customers in what amounts to a multi-tenant model, and resources are location-independent, at least to the end user.
• Rapid elasticity. Services and capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released as required, automatically. Cloud services should be “infinitely scalable” to end users at an on-demand point of consumption.
• Measured service. Cloud services automatically control and optimize resources as required by the application or services being run, including storage, processing and bandwidth, and utilization rates can be tracked and monitored by end users.

Does your dental IT support constantly fall short? Have you found yourself stuck in a long term contract that you wish you could get out of? Are you fed up with the poor response time for dental IT services? Do you lack an overall direction for your dental office? Is the reactive service and ‘Band-Aid patches’ starting to ad up? Are you tired of being ripped off?

Good news, QeH2 has a one week service agreement and a guaranteed one hour response time. We offer a progressive, CIO level approach to a stable, secure, healthy environment. We provide unbeatable hardware prices with no hidden fees; all for your convenience.

QeH2 has an extensive business and I.T. background and we believe in taking a business approach to technology services. We’ve been in your shoes and saw an opportunity to provide a better solution to the small to mid-sized business. QeH2’s goal is to ignite F.I.R.E in your business by leveraging information and technology to improve efficiencies, reduce overhead, and move your business forward. Technology is one of your most valuable assets and we know how to help you take full advantage of the resources you have been fighting with for years.

When you have an outage it’s truly an emergency. You’re losing money by the minute, far beyond the cost of repair. We offer immediate system alert packages that tell you what’s wrong before it breaks, we have best in industry response guaranteed, and we don’t tack on extra charges to get you back up and running. For a revolutionary approach to dental IT support that will leave you smiling look no further than QeH2.

QeH2 is committed to flexible dental IT services for all sizes of practices, states of environments, and can work with any budget. We have an exceptional labor rate of just $95/hour, offer free break-fix dental IT support, and have an entire host of I.T. resources to accomplish any project. We are committed to providing the highest level of support stretching beyond simple break-fix issues and into a world you’re not living in currently. Get ahead of your IT environment, hire a team of specialists for your dental IT needs. Contact us today!

If you spend any time on a computer then you definitely know how annoying it can be when your machine slows down. By following a few simple guidelines, you can maintain your computer, help increase your PC speed, and help keep it running smoothly.

First, remove spyware and help protect your computer from viruses. Spyware is something that collects personal information without you knowing. From the websites you visit to user names and passwords, spyware can put you and your confidential information at risk, while also compromising your computer’s performance.

Something else you can do is free up disk space. The ‘Disk Cleanup’ tool helps you to free up space on your hard disk to improve the performance of your computer. The tool identifies files that you can safely delete and then enables you to choose whether you want to delete some or all of the identified files. Disk Cleanup can be used to remove temporary Internet files, delete downloaded program files, to delete installed programs that you no longer use and so much more.

Another thing you can do to speed up your PC is check the integrity of the files stored on your hard disk by running the ‘Error Checking’ utility. As you use your hard drive, it can develop bad sectors, which slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing (such as file saving) difficult or even impossible. The Error Checking utility scans the hard drive for bad sectors and scans for file system errors to see whether certain files or folders are misplaced. Running this utility once a week to help prevent data loss is a good idea.

If you’re using Windows 7 or Windows Vista, ReadyBoost can be used to speed up your system. It allows you to use non-volatile flash memory (like a USB flash drive or a memory card) to improve performance without having to add additional memory.

Slow computers can kill your productivity and be downright frustrating. Performing regular computer maintenance is a good idea so you catch issues before they crash your whole machine and possibly your server. If none of these things help speed up your computer and you are in need it professional IT services, we can help! Simply contact us to learn how our team may be able to get your computer up and running like you want it to!

We’ve all heard of it, but what is Small Business Server 2008 exactly?

It is built on Windows Server 2008 Standard edition, and offers a wave of new features specifically designed for the small businesses, with less than 75 users in the network.

Usually Small Business users rely on ISP (Internet Service Provider) or 3rd party webmail for Email Services and end up paying more to the service provider. We’ve included a few of the advantages users get by having Exchange Server as their Email Server instead of Webmail.

• You have Unlimited mailbox and storage until the hard drive runs out of space, compared to Webmail where users have to pay for each mailbox and storage.

• It allows access to Mobile Messaging which is not available with webmail, or if it is, you have to pay more for it.

• Protection is very important. The Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus enabled on the server provide granular control to ensure spam filters don’t block authentic messages, and can be tuned to specific requirements.

• An internet connection is not required to have access to the mailbox contents.

Another great aspect of Small Business Server 2008 is the SharePoint application. It offers collaboration and centralized document sharing via the Web, while also providing browser based management and administration of the server. SharePoint allows creation of document libraries, which can be shared for collaborative editing.  Wouldn’t it be nice to eliminate the process of emailing a document to all involved parties for editing and instead use the workspaces Share Point provides, with document storage and retrieval features that make editing easier than you could imagine?

Remote Access is key to success in today’s business world.  It allows users to access a common network from anywhere around the globe. It allows small business owners access to their information (e.g. email, calendars, shared files, and folders) from remote locations.

Data recovery and protection are critical for any business owner. Windows Small Business Server 2008 contains new and updated features to help create backups and perform a complete recovery of your operating system, applications, and, data if needed.

If you’re interested in learning more about Small Business Server 2008 or if you need some assistance with your IT support, contact us today

One thing most people don’t think about replacing, at least not until it breaks, is their server. Your server hardware is a ticking time bomb and if you wait for it to go out, it could potentially be a huge liability.

The older your hardware is, the more likely it will fail and productivity will decrease. If you want to avoid big expenses, update your servers every three years.

Now you’re probably asking yourself, how can I tell if my server is going and if I should replace it…here are a few signs to watch for.

When you’re experiencing speed issues with your server, it’s time to start looking around for something new. Slow servers directly result in a less productive work force.

All servers have a fan to keep them from over heating, but as hard drives age, the fans become noisier…use the increase in noise level as indicator that your hardware is probably last leg.

Another good time to think about replacing your hardware is when your warranty is up.  If the manufacturer has stopped supporting the hardware and software—which means it’s more than three years old—then there’s a good chance you need some kind of upgrade.

A more obvious reason is when there’s no more room.  You shouldn’t just try to manage space or memory base on the short term, think about the company’s long-term needs.  Think if you’ll be adding more users, upgrades, etc.

Paying attention to the age and health of your server will tell you when you need an upgrade. Also, having a disaster recovery plan in place can’t hurt.  If you’re prepared for the worst, updating servers is a lot easier.

If you’re interested in replacing some of your hardware, or you don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place, contact QeH2, we can help.