Covering every inch of your home with wireless

With the advent of tablets and lightweight laptops, the preferred method of connecting to the internet has moved from wired to wireless. Whether at home or in the office, we all like the freedom that comes with being untethered from a workstation. But many homes have a single wireless router located in one corner of the house so it can't reach the entire home. Many offices have the same problem or don't have wireless at all.

WiFi is tricky because it's hindered by walls and floors. At 3TG, we have several ways of covering your entire home with WiFi, including a new product we're using to create a single, seamless wireless network throughout your entire property. Using the same equipment, we can create a guest network that lets visitors use your internet connection securely, without seeing your computers.

Businesses can also benefit greatly from having WiFi in their offices, as it can be essential guests and meetings. 3TG can offer great products for setting up WiFi in businesses. For storefront businesses who want to offer WiFi to customers, we can help them set up guest payment portals for an additional revenue stream.

Contact 3TG and get a free on-site estimate for the installation of a WiFi network that will cover your space.

Posted
AuthorMatt Maher

The virus that holds your files ransom

Viruses have had an interesting evolution. The stages have looked something like this:

  1. destroy everything, make a big impact, cause panic
  2. create popups and sell the ads to disreputable advertisers
  3. hide in order to create denial of service attacks on big sites
  4. trick users into giving the virus maker money

This most recent type (#4), has been prevalent in the form of fake antivirus programs and fake FBI warnings, and are somewhat easily removed by computer experts.

Cryptolocker is the first of a new type of virus that seeks to get money from computer users. This virus encrypts all of your files (documents, photos, music, etc), then gives you the opportunity to pay the bad guys in order to unlock your files. In most cases, you're given a window of time (around two days) before the key that unlocks your files is deleted. If this happens, the files can never be unlocked. They're gone.

What does this mean for you as a computer user?

  1. Back up! 3TG has always recommended that all of our customers have a backup plan in place. If you have a good backup plan, a virus like this will have minimal impact on you.
  2. Use caution. The unfortunate fact of antivirus applications is that not a single one can catch 100% of viruses, and they all miss different ones. Because of this, the #1 protection against viruses is to be a cautious computer user. Don't click on links in emails, and be careful which sites you visit.

If you would like assistance and advice in setting up a backup system, call 3TG. For one computer, a half hour remote support session is usually all that's needed to set up a cloud backup program, and an on-site one hour visit is all it takes for a mixed cloud/local backup solution.

Be safe and back your files up!

Posted
AuthorMatt Maher

Let 3TG act as your IT department

Big companies have IT departments dedicated to monitoring the systems the company uses. This isn't possible for small businesses with 3-5 employees, and certainly doesn't apply to home computer users.

But now small businesses and even home users can have their very own IT department keeping watch on the health of their computers.

With 3TG Managed Services, your computers receive health checks every five to fifteen minutes, ensuring that they're running at peak condition, and that any issues are caught immediately. These checks and features include:

  • Software updates  - stop getting bugged by Windows or Java updates, it all happens in the background and only for approved updates for all sorts of software applications from Google Earth to Adobe Reader to MS Office
  • Hard disk health, storage space, and defragmentation
  • Clean up temp files and temporary internet files
  • Hacker intrusion detection
  • Critical errors in Windows services
  • Potential security vulnerabilities
  • Monitoring occurs automatically and unobtrusively - your activity and files are secure and not viewable by 3TG
  • Any issues that arise immediately alert 3TG
  • Clients can request to receive daily reports of activity/work done on their computers

The cost of this monitoring and maintenance is $10/month for each computer.

Additionally, 3TG offers a managed antivirus solution for $5/month. This service includes monitored antivirus using the highly rated Vipre Antivirus application, and includes virus updates and monitored infection removals. 3TG is alerted whenever an infection occurs and is removed.

Posted
AuthorMatt Maher