If you are looking to improve your google page rank and you are based in Dublin this could be the opportunity for you.

Just reading through the brightspark-consulting blog and came across this event It’s on Thursday 25 February in Google Headquarters from 7-8pm, Find out how you could improve the visibility of your site in the Google index and be found by more potential customers. 1 hour, free-of-charge site clinic session at the European Google Headquarters in Barrow Street, Dublin 4, on Thursday February 25th, 7 pm – 8 pm.

Who can come?

Any business owner with their own website even IT support companies like iPing ?
No particular online experience required, all you need is a website
It’s completely free
The event is limited to 50 participants only on a first-come, first-served basis

Definitely worth it if you can get a place.

Hi everyone, I have been reading all the hype out there about the new Apple iPad and I was wondering if any of you will be running out to buy one?

Over the years I have not used Apple products all that much and we would only provide support to our clients who use them.

I have a feeling that the iPad will be a big hit among graphic design studios, PR companies and some web developers but do you think there is much point getting one outside of this area?

Let me know your thoughts my Apple using friends ?

Mark

It's fairly common today to hear of PCs getting hacked, getting attacked by viruses, controlled by trojans, monitored by spyware - and yet much of it is preventable. You don't need fancy software or hardware (although it does help) to protect yourself better - you just need to look around your computer and spot the door that most people leave wide open; The Network.

You can call it the Internet, Intranet, WiFi, Broadband, Dialup - whatever you wish - is essence though you are connecting your PC to a network of some sort - and chances are these days that you're not the only person connected to it. The more 'social' you make your network to other people the more likely you'll have visitors - and chances are they're not the kind you'd welcome...

The Goal

The ideal is to allow your PC all the access to the network that it needs but to restrict the access that the network has back to your PC. In this way you can prevent many of the common attacks on the network that people expose themselves to without even realising it.

Average Joe

Lets take a look at Average Joe (AJ), sitting at home on his PC, connecting to the internet via his lovely brand spanking new Wireless Router and highlight some of the common pitfalls that you can avoid with some very basic changes.

Correcting Common Pitfalls

Remote Administration:

On nearly all Wireless/Broadband Routers today there is an option to allow you to manage this remotely. Unless you really need to fiddle with your home/business network while you're not in the building there's no reason to have this enabled.

Secure Your WiFi:

This is a subjective one. Do you want to share your internet connection with anyone in the area? If the answer is 'No' then you need to make sure that you configure your Wireless Network properly. First and foremost this means choosing an encryption mode and setting a token/password. If you're wireless router supports it choose WPA-2 or WPA and try to choose a token/password that someone standing outside your house couldn't guess.

If you're a little lost on the whole WEP/WPA/WPA-2 thing and want more info you can check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Protected_Access and this article on the NeoWin forums.

Don't open common Ports:

If for some reason you do need to open ports on your Router to the internet to allow you to connect then choose ports that only you (and your colleagues) know rather than opt for the default port for the protocol.

Default Ports: SSH (22), HTTP (80), HTTPS (443), FTP (21), MS Windows Remote Desktop (3389)

You can then use the options on your Router to remap the ports back to the actual ports that need to be connected to inside your network;

Exposed Port (7421) -> Internal Port (22)

By using a port number that's not the default you make it less likely that someone will be able to determine what service you have behind that port as well as prevent a lot of the zombie-type bots out there ont he internet from just trying to brute-force attack your server/PC

Enable your Firewall:

There's a Firewall built into all versions of MS Windows from XP onwards (XP, VIsta, Win7) and there's no excuse for not using it. It's one of the simplest ways to protect your PC on the network. If you don't like the Firewall built into MS Windows there's lots of alternatives - but for me - it does the job, doesn't complicate setup and is SFOS (Significant Female Other Safe)

Disable File & Print Sharing:

Unless you need to share files from your own PC this option should be disabled. In the case of AJ above there's no need to have File & Print Sharing enabled as he's going to be the only person on his home network.

The advantage here is that it's simple to switch on and off so that you can enable it only when you need to.
There's many more ways you can prevent your PC from attacks on the network - I've only highlighted a few simple ones that you can make, which shouldn't affect your day-to-day use of the PC and yet can protect you from many of the common ways in which less scrupulous people try to monitor, control or just plain trash your computer.

If you're concerned about the security of your home or business network - feel free to give us a call here at iPing and we can help you secure and manage your network better.

The big question is... should we embrace or avoid Windows 7? This is the question I am going examine in this entry and I hope that I will be able to help you make an informed choice about whether to adopt Windows 7.

After the nightmare experience so many people had with Windows Vista on it's release; it is no surprise that people have been waiting for positive reviews before trying Windows 7. So let’s get cracking and have a look at three of the features of Windows 7 that have really impressed me.

1. Improved Speed over Windows Vista

One of the big problems experienced with Vista was the speed at which it performed; so this was one of the big challenges that the people at Microsoft had to address. They did this by redesigning how Windows 7 displays graphics to your monitor.

Windows 7 can not start to display things before all the background information is worked out. So you do not get that feeling that your computer is freezing. This change has reduced the wait time for applications to load, save and respond to users' requests. How this was achieved is not important, what is however important is the fact that this feature really improves usability in Windows 7 over Windows Vista.

2. Home Networking & Media

It is no longer the case that people just use a network in the office, therefore Microsoft have really catered for the home network in Windows 7. The ease at which you can now share your files between computers in your network will surprise you. It is also so much easier to connect printers to your home network and also to connect to your home Wi-Fi connection.

There are loads of new features in Windows 7 to make it easier to share all your MP3s, Videos and TV shows throughout your house by using your home network in Windows 7. You can view music or recorded TV shows from remote computer and play them across the home network. If you want to watch a recorded TV show, you can easily transfer it to your laptop so that you can watch it on the laptop at another time.

3. Not So Many Annoying Pop-ups

One of the things that really annoyed me about Windows Vista was the fact that when I wanted to do anything with my computer I got a pop-up box asking me if I was sure I wanted to do it; also if an application was looking to do something we got the same pop-up. These constant pop-ups became really quite frustrating. In Windows 7, Microsoft have introduced a setting where you can adjust the settings to reduce or switch off these annoying little pop-up boxes.

My experiences with Windows 7 are all positive and I will be suggesting to my clients based in Dublin to consider installing Windows 7 on new PCs.

If you would like to talk to someone in iPing about Windows 7 or your IT support in Dublin please drop us a LINE

Providing support to the array of companies in Dublin and it's surrounding area is something that we really enjoy doing here at iPing. We work hard at helping people who are having issues with their computers, servers & printers.

Dublin really is a small village in terms of providing IT & Computer support and that is why it is so important to provide a high quality service at a price that companies feel is fair.

The iPing team provide support for your computer network; our engineers will support and design your network so that it will do what you want and need it to do and more.  Another important part of our aim to provide great support in Dublin is our ability to provide our customers with a quality phone solution.

By being an integrated point of contact for companies in Dublin for their computers and their telephones, we aim to provide companies with Total Network Peace of Mind. So if your company is looking for Total Network Peace of Mind just drop us a LINE.

If your computer is starting to run slow then it is time that you were thinking of tuning it. CCleaner is an excellent and free application that you can use to speed up the performance of your computer and it is one of the tools that the iPing engineers use when performing health checks on our customers' computers.

If you have had Windows installed on your computer for quite some time and have installed and uninstalled lots of applications, it is likely that your registry is also in need of a fine tune and this is another function of CCleaner.

CCleaner will also help you to find free space on your computer by cleaning the recycle bin, memory dumps, file fragments, log files, system caches, application data, and various other data from your computer.

I advise you to run CCleaner with the default settings if you are planning on using it to tune your PC. To download CCleaner go to this website.

CCleaner is just one of the many tools iPing engineers are using to provide you with Total network peace of mind. If you would like us to have a look at your Network just contact us iPing provide IT & Computer support in Dublin & around Ireland.

When you save files to your hard disk, they are broken into small manageable blocks and then saved on to the hard disk. When there is enough space on your hard disk to save all of the blocks together on your computer, your computer will do this. Having all the blocks of a file continuously saved together on the hard disk really improves the performance of your computer.

Through general use of a computer you save, delete and create files, these can be Microsoft office files, music files or even big video files. You also install & uninstall programs from time to time on your computer. By doing this over a period of time, you use space on your computer’s hard disk and it starts to become fragmented i.e. small spaces on your hard disk start to appear that are too small to hold a single file.

When your computers hard disk is fragmented, your operating system saves files in different parts of the disk, as a result your computer will run slower when you are working on this file at a later stage.

Once a month you need to defrag your computer, so as to bring all the file blocks together on your hard disk for similar files. When you do this you will be able to access your files quicker and your computer will run better.

Recently I have been using Defraggler www.piriform.com/defraggler to defrag my computer and I suggest that you should use it once a month to help tune your computer.

For more info drop us a line Here. iPing provide IT & Computer support in Dublin & around Ireland.

Here at iPing we have been working closley with Eset using there Smart Security Solution.

This application Combines firewall and antispam with ESET Antivirus package and it gives your PC total protection from threats on the Internet. It is also packaged with a junk module that will filter out those e-mails that you do not want filling up your inbox.

If you are interested in securing your PC give us a call Contact. iPing provide IT & Computer support in Dublin & around Ireland.

Check it out here - Stumbled on this at lifehacker.com

Idea is when on a new computer, or someone’s who doesn’t have any apps installed, instead of downloading them one at a time and having to hit Next, Next, Next, etc… you can click all the apps you want, download them all at once, and it installs them all at once.

One to tag to your delicious.com bookmarks