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Backups for Students are an A+!

10/6/2016

 
It's officially fall, which means pumpkin spice, flannels, cooler nights, and everyone returning back to school. With students busy readjusting to the school workload, it's easy to forget to properly backup important school files. This month, we're encouraging parents of high school and college students to give Glospey Computers a call so we can ensure your child's files are secure. 

Recently we had two sisters sharing a laptop in their senior year at college call us for a dropped laptop. All of their notes were on it and, of course, being late in their student career, their current classes referenced things they had already learned. They were desperate to get their notes back but, unfortunately, the drive was too far gone. A backup would have saved them a lot of heartache. 

Glospey Computers can protect your and your students' files, regardless of your budget!

The best of both worlds: Ideally, we recommend clients have a local backup and a cloud backup for their files because each are better at protecting against different kinds of losses. If a client can only afford one or the other, we recommend cloud backup as it can protect against all events, just not necessarily as efficiently. For example, if a hard drive fails and the client has a local backup, it might take a couple hours to recover all their data to a new drive. In contrast, we've had customers take up to 2 weeks to recover their data from a cloud. Of course, the amount of data and the quality of the customer's internet connection play a huge role in how long that download will take. 

For low budgets or ‘lightweight data’: For lightweight backups or low budgets, we can set up backups on a thumb drive. For those clients with a lot of data and who don't need as much portability, we recommend setting up backups on an external drive. We recommend using different software than what typically comes with the external drives; in our experience, they can be unreliable. The software we recommend is very affordable ($10 + tax) and allows you to set backups on a schedule. 

The convenience of the cloud: For clients who don't want to worry about where they are, the hassle of carrying extra devices that can be damaged or lost, or want to be protected from fire or theft, standard cloud backup is very convenient and affordable. 

For those who want heavy-duty local backups: For clients who want the ultimate local backup, we can set up a NAS drive. These can be pricier, but offer the ultimate in convenience, especially when multiple people and/or computers need to backup, so they're perfect for families like the one we mentioned. These devices can also facilitate sharing between colleagues or family members, and can restrict access to folders so files that can't or don't want to be shared aren't shared. They can also be setup as a cloud for easy access to the files remotely.

Unsure which option might be the best fit for your company or your family? Don't fret - call Glospey Computers today at (401) 787-5297 and we can put together the data backup plan that fits your needs and your budget. 

TV Technician Causing You Trouble? 

9/2/2016

 

Has your business's computer network ever gone down because of a mistake that a cable provider made? This month Glospey Computers would like to highlight something you might not have considered - having us come by when your cable provider services your business, to prevent unexpected disaster, as many technicians aren't trained to deal with complex business networks!

Last week, one of our clients had their business's network shut down for 4 hours because their TV provider's technician added an unauthorized device to their network. The system responded by shutting down the network. We strongly recommend clients notify us when their cable providers' technicians are scheduled to stop by so we can help prevent unforeseen issues! 

Business networks are complex and many technicians are not experienced in dealing with them, as they're typically trained for basic home networks. Having Glospey Computers on-site will help preclude any network downtime as we're already
onsite to resolve any issues! 

Remember, if we don't need to do any actual work, there is no charge from us! We would much rather be there as a precaution for our clients then have them worry about an additional expense. 


Glospey Computers provides on-site, pickup, and delivery services 24/7. Any questions? Feel free to contact Tim at (401) 787-5297. 

The Importance of Data Backups

8/7/2016

 
Have you ever panicked about the possibility of losing all of your personal or business files? This month we here at Glospey Computers would like to stress the importance of data backups, to prevent data-disaster! 

In the last 3 weeks alone, Glospey Computers has performed 5 data recoveries after data has been lost, and unfortunately they were not all successful. You can prevent losing all of your personal files, or your business's files by taking a few simple precautions.
  • Invest in a thumb drive, external drive, or a network drive. This is a necessary and worthy investment in the security of your important files. Glospey Computers can recommend which of these options would be best for you or your business.
  • Regularly back up your files to your external drive. 

Glospey Computers can offer a wide array of backup solutions to fit any situation or budget! From an external drive or thumb drive for a single computer, to a network drive to handle an entire network, to recommendations on which cloud providers are worth considering & which of their plans best suits a client's needs, Glospey Computers is there for you. Coupled with any of our monthly contracts, we can verify that the backups are working and up-to-date.

A backup system to fit your needs is more affordable than you might think. And after all, what is your business worth to you? In many small businesses, one computer houses all of the data.  If that computer goes down and it's not backed up correctly or at all, the whole business can go down with it! Believe us - unfortunately we've seen it happen.
​
Glospey Computers provides on-site, pickup, and delivery services 24/7. Any questions? Feel free to contact Tim at (401) 787-5297. 

The Importance of Passwords

7/1/2015

 
We here at Glospey Computers can't stress enough the importance of passwords & password security.  How secure are your data or online accounts?  It all starts with you...  We recommend that, at a minimum, you change all of your passwords every 3 months!  Your password should be unintelligible gibberish.  Do NOT include words found in a dictionary, common acronyms or names!  

Your password should be a complex mixture - meaning it should include at least one of each of the following (when permitted as not all sites support special characters):


- a lower case letter


- an upper case letter


- a number
-

a special character  


What is a strong password?

The strength of a password depends on the different types of characters that you use, the overall length of the password, and whether the password can be found in a dictionary. It should be 8 or more characters long.

For tips about how to create passwords that are easy for you to remember but difficult for others to guess, read Create strong passwords. (from Microsoft’s Safety & Security Checker).

Tons of interesting information about passwords is available on Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_strength .

Chances are you fall into the trap of using simple or easy to remember passwords because you have so many different accounts that require them? We get it. How many times have you been asked for your username and password only to sit there completely at a loss wondering which combo you used for that account? Here are a few tips to make it all easier on you while also keeping you protected:

  1. Identify which accounts are more important and/or need to be more secure and create a series of different usernames/password combos that you use for different levels of security

  2. Figure out the best way to save all your different usernames and passwords (that is safe from hackers!) and have it easily accessible

  3. Create a plan that has you updating regularly, e.g., monthly, quarterly, every 6 months or at the very least annually – an example being on the 1st day of every new quarter you update…

As always, we are here to help! Glospey Computers provides on-site and pickup and deliver services 24/7.




What's your story?  Here's ours . . .

6/29/2015

 
Before there was a Glospey Computers, my friends and family would use my expertise to fix their computers.  When I started getting referred to their friends and family, I decided that I had to make a choice because I enjoyed doing that kind of work.  I could go work for another computer company or I could start my own business.  I decided to open Glospey Computers to save clients money and time.  I’d heard horror stories about computer shops' pricing and turn-around time.  I knew I needed something that would set me apart from my competition.  At the time, I could find no other shop that offered pick-up and delivery services to residential clients without having a ridiculously small radius and/or charging substantial amounts of extra money.  Also, most of the other shops were only open when most of their would-be clients were at work (9-5).  I decided these would be my differentiators!
Pick-up and delivery was only the beginning.  We have evolved since then.  I am now constantly on the lookout for commercial products that I can offer my clients at residential prices. Glospey Computers has grown to now offer contracts, remote support, remote monitoring, and 24/7 services to residential and commercial clients!


This has not been without side-effects. I quickly learned that setting my prices too low would put me out of business. Then I could help no one.  Raising my prices within the line of my competition did make some of my clients feel betrayed.  “How can you say you’re saving us money if you’re the same price as everyone else?” they’d ask.  We'd then explain that labor is but one expense when it comes to computers.  We save our customers money in other ways.  We advise our customers on which products to buy
and which to avoid based on budget and intended use.

We work efficiently, while on-site, to save our clients' labor on the bill and, if we feel a project took too long, we don’t bill for the whole time.  We offer warranties and guarantees on our parts and labor and we honor them.


We don’t have a host of hidden fees and charges.  Unless the nature of the job changes, we honor our quotes once given.  If the job changes, we tell our customers up front if those changes will result in additional billable time or charges.


It hasn't been all rainbows and butterflies.  Like any business, our work load waxes and wanes.  I am a one-man business.  When I first started
Glospey Computers, if I got too busy, my turn-around times would suffer.  I took this a lot harder than my customers since it was one of the very things I went into business to solve.

Glospey Computers is a growing computer shop serving all of Rhode Island and south eastern Connecticut because our customers trust us, like us, and appreciate the service and integrity we offer.  While we’re not the cheapest shop, we have reasonable, predictable prices.

We continue to grow best from word of mouth referrals.  We look forward to serving our customers for many years to come.


Sincerely,


Tim Kearns

Owner/Technician

Glospey Computers

Internet Connection Issues?

4/28/2015

 

You might want to call Glospey Computers before you call your ISP!

Picture
One of our main goals is to save our customers money. We can only do this effectively if they call us before they spend money.

Recently, I spent most of the day fixing a network problem for an existing client who had internet connection issues. The day before they (understandably, but in retrospect…incorrectly) called their ISP - internet service provider. The ISP sent out a tech to fix the problem. He sold our client equipment the client didn't need AND made the problem worse! This is an easy mistake for the un-knowing, as business networks are complex.

We got the call that following morning, I went with a network specialist there a bit after noon and had the entire store back up and running by 4. Most of that time was spent figuring out what had been done then fixing that rather than repairing the simple problem (that was done within the first hour).

Had we been called first, the client would have:

  1. saved over 2 hours of billable time from us;

  2. avoided about 2 days of downtime;

  3. they wouldn't have had to pay the ISP to send a technician, and;

  4. they wouldn't have purchased irrelevant equipment.

We recommended the equipment be returned so at least they won't be out that money.

If this HAD been an ISP problem, we would have diagnosed the network for free, as we don't charge for problems we can't or don't fix.

When you have a problem, please call us. We will save you time and money.

Tim Kearns – Glospey Computers
http://www.glospeycomputers.com/
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