TechJournal, December 2021
What's New
As many decision makers have requested, we’ll be doing more tips and tricks to help users working remotely to keep their personal machines in good working order.
We’ll be publishing these tips and tricks in this newsletter as well, since newsletter is a monthly deal, you may want to sign up for our email newsletter. Simply email nadeem@pcsn.net and I’ll be sure you get on the newsletter list.
Oh, and happy holidays, merry Christmas and awesome new year everyone!
December 2021
This monthly publication provided courtesy of Nadeem Azhar, Owner of PC.Solutions.Net
Our Mission: To build a community of successful-minded entrepreneurs that inspires excellence, encourages collaboration and expands the capacity of all members to achieve great things.
Hackers Are Stepping Up Their Game This Holiday Season
The holiday season has almost arrived, and more Americans are expected to turn to online shopping this year than ever before. The ongoing pandemic, combined
with convenience, makes online shopping an obvious choice for
most consumers.
Unfortunately, online shopping has been muddied with hackers and cyberthieves since its debut. There are still safe places on the Internet where we should feel comfortable to shop, though. If you are careful about where you spend your money or share your personal information, online shopping can feel just as safe as entering a store.
Here are our five best tips to ensure that your online holiday shopping is safe and secure.
Stick To Secure Websites
When shopping online, you want to ensure that every site you visit is secure. Look at the browser bar when entering a new site. If there is a small padlock icon to the left of the web address, the site is secure and you should feel safe to continue. Google Chrome goes an extra step and will label unsecure sites as “not secure” so you know to stay away. Another quick way to tell if a site is secure is by looking at the web address. If it begins in “https,” you’re good to go. If the “s” is missing at the end and it starts
with “http,” the site is not secure, and you should find somewhere
else to shop.
Don’t Be Afraid To Use
Your Phone
You can shop on your phone just as easily as you do on your computer, and the portable aspect should not worry you. Major corporations like Amazon and Walmart have secure
apps with seemingly unlimited items to purchase. Making purchases directly on apps avoids the hassle of going to the company’s website, where your connection might not be as secure. It also helps to set up an Apple or Google Pay account, as businesses will not be able to get your bank account information from these sources.
If you do decide to shop on your mobile device, make sure that you are not on public WiFi. Public WiFi is rarely secure, and using it could make you an easy target for hackers. They could get any personal information you enter while on the WiFi. It’s better to bookmark the products and purchase them when you are on a private connection.
Use A Password Manager
To keep your information secure, it’s imperative to utilize strong and complex passwords that are difficult to crack. Avoid using personal information and using the same password across accounts. To make things easier for yourself, utilize a password manager to keep track of all of your different passwords. This way, you can create complex passwords that even the best of
"If you are careful about where you spend your money or share your personal information, online shopping can feel just as safe as entering a store."
hackers can’t figure out. Make sure to use a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and
special punctuation to make the most secure password possible.
Take A Pass On Amazing Deals
If you come across a price that just seems too good to be true, chances are it probably is. If you search for an item on a search engine, you may see prices way lower than those of major retailers. These options could be on unsecured sites as a front to try to steal your information or it could be someone who doesn’t actually have the item trying to make a quick dollar. While the deal might seem like something you can’t pass up, it may cost you more in the long run, and you might not even get the product.
Pay Attention To Bank Statements
You won’t always know when someone gets access to your personal information or bank accounts. By paying attention to your bank statements, you can catch overcharges or purchases that you did not make. Always use a credit card when shopping online because hackers will not be able to access any of your actual money. Most credit cards come with fraud protection that prevents you from being liable for charges you never actually made.
As long as you take the necessary precautions, shopping online is a safe and financially responsible practice. If you follow these tips, your holiday shopping will go as smoothly as possible.
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Tips & Tricks
Most of us who have been working with Windows for some time know that Windows is a very “chatty” OS. Even if a user is not doing anything, Windows is reading/writing to/from the drive, creating temporary files, deleting them so on and so forth. With all this activity, sometimes files don’t get deleted or get crosslinked. This makes it necessary to run maintenance on the drives every so often. Running scans on the drive for errors and running cleanup utilities on routine basis are essential.
The good things is Windows already comes with all the tools to do this, so you don’t have download or buy these tools.
Signup for our email newsletter to get details on how to run these tools so your remote users can keep their home machines and remote machines running in ship shape.
A Winning Strategy To The Game Of Building A Business
Life isn’t always easy. Sometimes we sit back and expect things to happen for us or we simply do as we’re told and expect great things, but it’s not always that easy. While defensive mindsets can be beneficial in some areas, if you want your business to grow, then you need to play aggressive offense.
I first got into real estate not long after Black Monday and the recession that hit in the early ‘90s. At the time, many other realtors relied on defensive tactics. They waited by the phone for prospective buyers to contact them or they waited at an open house for potential buyers to walk in. But that’s not how you
get business.
I had no prior training in real estate when I entered, but that didn’t stop me from becoming a dominant force in the field. We didn’t have millions of dollars to buy subscribers or begin a widespread advertising campaign. Instead, we went after highly targeted strategic partners and I keynoted at large conferences to build our subscriber base. We came out of the recession with more than 5 million subscribers because of our aggressive actions.
During various recessions, companies that have made a point of being aggressive in their campaigns have seen great growth. During the Great Depression in the 1920s, Post was the dominant leader in the breakfast market. They decided to cut their advertising while one of their competitors, Kellogg’s, decided to double theirs. Kelloggs’s profits grew by 30% during the recession, and they became the top dog in the market, where they have remained ever since.
During the energy crisis of the 1970s, Volkswagen, the car import leader of the time, cut growth spending. Toyota decided to double its spending focused on marketing and growth and became the #1 car import company. Volkswagen was bumped down to fifth. Toyota is still the leader of car imports and is three times larger than Volkswagen.
Elon Musk is one of the greatest offensive businessmen of the last century. In 2016, South Australia’s electrical grid was knocked out due to a devastating storm. Elon tweeted that he could provide 100 megawatts of storage in 100 days or less. This would have been the largest battery in the entire world at that point, and Elon won the bid. He produced the battery within 60 days.
The greatest way to grow your business into an empire is by taking an offensive approach. It’s been proven time and
time again by some of the greatest names in business.