(The) R. M. Pawnyk Corporation
Small Business (SMB) Specialists
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Notices Last Updated: August 12, 2008 11:00 AM The Notices page is the most frequently visited resource by customers and interested end users. It provides pertinent information regarding product issues, releases and information categorized by product. The newest information will always be displayed in bold print to help you locate recent changes. Rescue and Recovery Services Rescue, recovery and data retrieval services for desktop and laptop operating systems at a flat rate everyone can afford. Identify, isolate and remove viruses and spyware that slows your system to a crawl and jeopardizes your privacy and security. Or if you accidentally hit that "Delete" key instead of the "Insert" key and your project is now "GONE". Trust your confidential information to a Certified Microsoft Business Solutions Partner who really understands your needs and Microsoft products. Restrictions apply - call for details. We are amazed at the number of end users who leave their workstations powered up all day long. With the always on internet through DSL subscriber lines or cable modems, and the general lack of protection with inadequate or non-existent spyware and antivirus products, do you really think that someone won't take advantage of your invitation to hack into your computer? At a minimum, turn off the network interface at the workstation. Many users don't even know how their local routers with firewalls are set up. No wonder that privacy issues and fraud are rampant, with little or no exposure for detection, much less prosecution. Forensic technical and accounting consulting services are available to help companies prepare and deal with a variety of security issues. Call for a confidential meeting to review your management or board concerns. Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0 Try Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0. Order the 90 day trial of the new version of Microsoft Great Plains directly from Microsoft Business Solutions. Use the URL appearing below to get your free copy. http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/gp/default.mspx Service Pack 2 for 10.0 available for download Service Pack 3 for v9.0 available for download Microsoft Small Business Financials 9.0 RealWorld Classic & Expertise Unsupported by Microsoft as of September, 2007. Call us directly for your support. Need to move up - call about migrations to Great Plains and Small Business Financials. Realworld posting to wrong year in some instances (1908 instead of 2008). Accounting information may be impacted with transactions appearing in the wrong years. Call for resolution and workaround recommendations. Product Promotions Horizons International Manufacturing Suite Starship Retail Management System (RMS) Microsoft Customer Relationship Management (CRM) FRx Report Writer Service Pack 9 available for download. Microsoft Small Business Accounting 2007 Microsoft Point of Sale (POS) Miscellaneous
Microsoft's Windows Live One-Care free workstation scan seems to be alerting on a Trojan win32.alureon.gen!c which Symantec Anti-Virus Corporate Edition isn't aware of, and assures the user that with auto-protect enabled, the workstation is secure and not infected. Placing a call the support center, an offshore script-reading customer service representative finally recommended that the "experts" needed to remotely diagnose this situation for $99.95. Either Symantec is calling this particular Trojan something else and is trying to extract additional support revenues, or Live One-Care is attempting to coerce users into investing $19.95 for a paid subscription. Using another anti-virus product from Sunbelt Software, CounterSpy failed to identify the aforementioned Trojan as being active on the system. Whom to believe? As if Microsoft's Vista problems aren't enough, Microsoft has come under criticism recently regarding its' Vista Capable labeling on new computers being sold. One would assume that a Vista Capable workstation would be capable of running any version of Vista. WRONG !!! If you plan on purchasing a new Vista computer with the intention of upgrading to a more capable version of Vista after the purchase, you may be at risk! Microsoft's actual position is that for a computer to be labeled "Vista Capable", it only had to be able to run Vista Home Basic. That means a computer that can't run Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate could still be labeled "Vista Capable" even though it can't run many of the features advertised with Vista. Intel motherboards with the 915 embedded graphics chipset may not be able to run all versions of Microsoft's newest OS, Vista. The Vista Capable labeling is currently being litigated as a class action lawsuit. Bravo Yahoo !! As many of you are aware, Yahoo has attempted to put into place additional filters to reduce the amount of spam being addressed to email users around the world. Not only was there a major disruption in service, but major ISPs such as AT&T and SBC who outsourced to Yahoo all outbound mail services, are only willing to offer a $5.00 credit for the inconvenience caused by poorly tested, fractionally implemented and wholly uncontrolled updates. Assuming, one had the patience to endure the total ineptitude of the developers, the spammers have figured out a way to get around all the fancy filters, blocks, verifications etc., in a matter of one week. Behold, my email inbox now contains the familiar Viagra, meet sexy singles, work from home and the Nigerian scams that I was finally getting used to. To Yahoo, SBC, AT&T and others involved in this fiasco, JOB WELL DONE !
Windows Live OneCare is still not ready for prime time ! Our most recent test of OneCare 2.0 lasted only a week. The suite constantly interfered with other Microsoft applications and Microsoft released utilities. A quick list of things that stopped working include: Deskmenu, Microsoft's OneNote, SQL Manager, ActiveSync, Dynamics Great Plains v10, all Microsoft products. Diskeeper, Printkey, WinZip QuickPick suffered startup issues. Realizing that Microsoft is not able to test all possible products before releasing its' newest offerings, one would assume that the beta testing is supposed to collect defect information and provide feedback to the developers in order for them to minimize any issues that a newly released product may cause. This certainly is not the case. Business critical applications such as Microsoft Business Solutions Dynamics Great Plains (v10.0) ran so inconsistently, that we were forced to back off the install of Microsoft Windows Live OneCare 2.0. Our attempt to reload Dynamics Great Plains provided test data (company TWO) resulted in manually turning off the machine after 14 hours - a process that should take less than one hour. It seems that beta testing has turned out to be marketing and awareness centered in order to implant a product brand upon the millions of users who may become the real beta testers, after committing to the product by purchasing. Are the developer and marketing priorities losing touch with the real world? We seem to think so. If you are a user whose computer experience revolves around the internet in an entertainment focused environment, you may gain some useful advantage out of Live OneCare. However, if your workstation sustains your business processes and your ability to service customers with some degree of satisfaction, don't go here. ZoneAlarm ForceField: Compromised in sixty seconds. Check Point's virtualized browser security client, like would-be panaceas before it, fails to live up to the hype. Another case of creating something as new, and pushing it to market even though it's not ready. And since I'm in a picky mood - hat's off to the FBI in not understanding that redacting a document still allows any users with half-a-wit, to copy, paste and expose the redacted text. All it takes is a CTRL + C. International Cybercrime Ring busted - the US Department of Justice charged 38 individuals in the United States and Romania with ties to organized crime in two separate indictments involving computer and credit card fraud. The alleged fraud includes charges of phishing and smishing (soliciting personal information for illegal use via Short Message Service (SMS) text messages. Of the 34 financial institutions compromised, 20 were CREDIT UNIONS ! HELLO !!!!! Isn't this saying something ???? And finally, the good ole TJX (TJ Maxx) credit card fiasco. If you remember, TJX whose substandard security led to the world's biggest credit card heist, leaking details on more than 94 million customer credit cards, fires employee for exposing shoddy security practices. The actual breach was twice as big as admitted, according to the banks involved, costing TJX $118 million. Does history repeat itself ? and if so, how quickly ?
Discontinuance Notices Payroll Year End Notices New Customer Promotions Network Intrusions and Attacks Throughout the normal business day, our network records and captures many attempts (potential attacks) to sniff out our network defenses. These logs are reviewed daily and trends are tracked. Most small businesses are extremely vulnerable to intrusions emanating from mainland China. They have increased dramatically and the most obvious offender's ISPs are listed as follows:
If you are connected to the internet, you need to review the robustness of your firewall, your anti-virus and your malware and spyware monitors. These represent three distinct vulnerabilities, and it is very foolish to think that just by having an antivirus product, you are protected from those individuals whose agenda doesn't include your best interests. To remain safe from these intrusions, you need to address all three areas. Questions regarding posted information or requests for additional information should be directed to the address appearing below. E-Mail:
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©2001 (The) R.M.
Pawnyk Corporation All rights reserved |
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