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Showing posts from December, 2011

Some tips on data security

I am putting together some tips on data security.  This is not the most air tight security setup, but it is good enough to protect against basic security threat and they are relatively simple to set up. Photo credit: Pixabay Strong Password Will not elaborate on this as there are plenty of articles out there on this.   My rule of thumbs is that the password is at least eight characters, with combination of alphabet, number, and special character.  I also suggest not to use the same password for all logins.  Example, don't use the same password for your Hotmail account, Skype and company online system, so that they don't all get compromised just because one does. Google Apps (Google Suite) We run a lot of our software in SaaS (Software as a Service) and most of them integrate with Google Apps authentication for single sign-on.  This would mean if someone gain access to my Google Apps login, he will gain access to a lot of my company data.  I enabled "2-step veri

Company laptop and the software needed

I'm a strong supporter of open-source, freeware and SaaS (Software as a Service).  We have recently switched half of our company's computers into MacBook Pro.  Here are a list of software that we installed (or not installed, if we are using SaaS) for common office tasks on all MacBook Pro.  Most of them work on Windows as well since we were previously living in that world. Photo credit: Toni Cuenca Text document, Spreadsheet: OpenOffice  (Free) Presentation: Keynote  (USD19.99).   We previously used OpenOffice for presentation. E-mail, Calendar, Address Book: Google Apps  (Free for 10 users) Anti-Virus: None, however we do run as Standard User instead of Admin on our MacBook.   We previously used Avast on our Windows computers. I am a strong advocate for Google Mail (part of Google Apps) as I have used Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird and some webmail solutions, but nothing come close to Google Mail, in the sense of uptime and functionality

Integrating dropbox into company's file system

Background We need a file system to backup all our laptop data files in real-time manner.  We also need a file system to share files among team members.  In previous company, we set up a NAS (Network Attached Storage) and configured backup script that automatically run every morning to backup files from each laptop to the NAS.  We also set up shared folders in the NAS for file sharing purpose.  The shortcoming of the file backup system is that it is not so real-time and it can only run when the laptop is connected to the office LAN (Local Area Network).  The shortcoming of file sharing system is that we can only access the file when connected to LAN or via VPN (Virtual Private Network) when working remotely. Challenges Some of the policies that our company (team of seven as of writing, and we don't intend to get bigger than 30) follows when adopting a IT solution is that: a) Minimal setup cost b) Minimal, if not zero, hardware (disaster recovery and office mobility pla

Hello world!

Has always been wanting to maintain a blog and finally get to actually do it. I am not sure if I'm a good writer but I figured topics like business, photography, IT and life may not need fanciful words. A little bit about myself: I run a digital marketing agency and I have been previously involved in a few start-ups, some make it and some don't, but I learnt and experienced different things from each and every one of them. By training, I am a programmer, hence the title of this post. Photo credit: Pixabay