Joomla! is a terrific Content Management System (CMS) that makes the creation of a professional-looking website a breeze. It is a very popular tool with tons of add-ons – templates, modules, plugins, components etc. – that allows you to customize the software to your heart’s content. Once in a while, the need arises to change … Read more
Security software vendor McAfee says small- and midsized companies are becoming a popular target for hackers and online thieves.
There is some sobering statistics available which indicates that small and midsized businesses are increasingly under attack from hackers at the same time they’re downsizing their security and IT departments to cut costs.
I recently had an error in Joomla! and was unable to log in to the administrator site. The error was:
I almost panicked. It turned out that I had accidentally disabled the authentication module and plugin thereby denying access to the site administrator. Here’s how I fixed the error…
Scott Guthrie has announced on his blog that Microsoft Corporation recently launched a sponsor-based program called WebsiteSpark. The program is designed to help small professional web development and design service companies with 10 employees or less succeed by providing access to business opportunities, support, training, software and solutions.
WebsiteSpark is designed for independent web developers and web development companies that build web applications and web sites on behalf of others. It enables them to get software, support and business resources from Microsoft at no cost for three years, and to expand their business and build great web solutions using ASP.NET, Silverlight, SharePoint and PHP, and the open source applications built on top of them.
We’ve all heard the admonition a couple of times to secure our confidential data before sending it as an email attachment. Even a simple password-protected zip file is still better than nothing. On the high end, email encryption using tools like PGP, or the one included with Astaro Security Gateway will insure that your email is protected from prying eyes. There are free tools out there like AxCrypt, the open source file encryption software which allows you to encrypt single files or folders. I have seen a lot of clients sending off bank statements, credit card and social security numbers via email without encryption or protection.
The rapid growth in online commerce and the way we interact has great significance for small business owners since it affects our ability to collaborate online, work remotely and engage in transactions with several parties even on a global scale. The underlying glue that makes all this work however, is confidence. We are able to do all the wonderful things with technology because we allowed ourselves to believe that our information will be protected and that the risks of foul play are minimized.
This expansion in connectivity creates new opportunities for businesses of all sizes, but especially for small business owners. At the same time, the new frontiers bring along a new set of vulnerabilities and threats like phishing, pharming, identity theft, data leakage and unmanaged endpoints. Recent research shows that about 63 percent of businesses are going to experience some form of information loss and regulatory breach which will lead to damage to reputation and loss of revenue, partners and customers.
Small businesses have to find ways to maximize current technologies and must do so in a cost effective manner. As is often the case, many small businesses have little Information Technology experience and cannot afford to maintain a full-time IT department because it is just too expensive, time-consuming and in many instances flat-out inefficient.
