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Careful – Your Windows 7 Loses Support in January 2020

If you use Windows 7, you need to be aware that Microsoft will end support for your operating system in January 2020. Now is the time to upgrade to Windows 10.  

Windows 7 is an operating system that still has plenty of serious fans – in fact, it was only earlier last year that the market share for Windows 10 moved past Windows 7. Considering that Windows 10 was released in 2015, that is saying something. All good things must come to an end, though, and Windows 7 is no exception. Microsoft is ending support for Windows 7 in January of 2020, which means that it will become much more difficult to keep the OS up and running moving forward. And a recent announcement from Microsoft has let Windows 7 users know that they are going to be seeing bigger, full-screen pop-ups to warn them of the upcoming end of life of the operating system.

Microsoft is Magnifying it’s Warnings about End of Windows 7 Support

All through 2019, Microsoft has been telling Windows 7 users that the support for their operating system was going to end in 2020. Of course, if you are using Windows 7, you may have missed the warnings or just decided to think about them later – after all, a year is a long time. But the end is really around the corner now.

The official end of support for Windows 7 is January 14, 2020. The day after, on the 15^th, you will no longer be able to get support from Microsoft if something goes wrong with your operating system. That is why the prompts telling you that Windows 7 support is going to end are getting a lot bigger and more obnoxious. Microsoft is going to push full-screen pop-ups telling you that “your Windows 7 PC is out of support”.

You don’t have to keep looking at the notifications if you don’t want to. You can ask Windows to remind you later or to never remind you again. You can also choose to ‘learn more’, which will take you to an information page about what loss of support means and give you the option to upgrade to Windows 10.

What Does “Loss of Support” Mean?

There are several things that will happen when support ends for your Windows 7 operating system, including:

• Loss of tech support. Right now, if something goes wrong with your Windows 7, you can contact Microsoft and get somebody to help you with the problem. They can run you through troubleshooting steps and try to get things going again. But when support ends, you won’t have the option of contacting Microsoft about it. They will tell you that they no longer support your operating system.
• No more software updates. Microsoft is always working to improve their operating systems – at least the ones they currently support. But once they stop support, they stop putting resources into improving an OS. That means there will be no more updates to make Windows 7 secure and stable.
• Loss of security. There are always people out there looking to compromise Windows operating systems, even ones as old as Windows 7. When you lose support for your OS, it means that Microsoft will no longer be trying to identify threats and upgrade your OS to defend against those threats.
• Loss of compatibility. This is the biggest problem for most people with unsupported operating systems. You may be ok with being less secure and not getting the latest and greatest improvements, but you are unlikely to be happy when your favorite software stops working with your version of Windows. Over time, the thing you can use your computer for will become fewer and fewer as software moves beyond your OS.

Fortunately, getting support for your OS is easy enough – you just have to upgrade to Windows 10.

Learn how AI helps businesses analyze customer provided data and IoT implementation important for growth, customer loyalty, and greater profitability.  

There is so much data available to your business but getting a proper read on its importance an investment in costly data scientists. Learn ways technological advances, such as AI, helps your business synthesize data and provide your IT team with the information needed to create apps and other solutions at a lower cost.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is at the forefront of the data analysis performed by businesses. According to a recent article appearing in Forbes.com, data centers used to house the billions of bytes of data businesses collect, along with business analytics are growing at a compound annual growth rate of 50 percent between the years 2017 – 2021. The market value of IoT in 2017 was $235 billion and expected to more than double to $520 billion by 2021.

What does this mean for you and your business? All those valuable bits and bytes you collect from your customers is useless if you do not have a team in place that can help you make sense of it and use it to grow your business. This typically means hiring a staff of professional data scientists who, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), earned a median pay in 2018 of $118,370 or $56.91 an hour. That is a huge investment in labor which may be better spent instead on AI developed approaches to data analysis and app development.

Leveraging AI to Produce Professional Data Analysis

Professional data scientists cost you nearly $60 per hour while computer programmers with less education and the skills necessary to write and test computer code and develop apps based on your data earn about $40 an hour (median pay of $84,280 according to BLS). AI gives you the ability to hire programmers over scientists, who can help you properly analyze and utilize your data. Here’s how: AI has involved in one of the few technological advances capable of passing the Turing test.

If you are not familiar with the Turing test, it is the ability of a machine to demonstrate human-like intelligence and provide responses indistinguishable from human responses. That this phenomenon has finally happened for the first time in 2014 (64 years after the test was developed in 1950 by British mathematician Alan Turing, noted for breaking German code during World War II) means AI has become the leading driver for businesses looking to bring sense and order to data and quickly create consumer-driven apps to further engage customers and increase revenue.

Why AI over Human Analysis?

Without giving away to fears about machines taking over ala Stanley Kubrick’s HAL 9000 in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” business should come to quickly recognize that machine learning and AI are useful technologies, important in reducing human labor costs and providing a way to integrate IoT into your business.

Hiring programmers who can seize upon the results of AI analysis comes at a savings of about $35,000 per scientist needed to perform the role artificial intelligence does. This alone gives you a compelling business reason to consider the advantage of leveraging AI over traditional human analysis performed by professional data scientists. As companies move slowly toward IoT implementation, you have the opportunity to be on the forefront and beat your competitors to the punch, enabling you to chart uncharted territories and seize important market share!

Companies today operate under strict regulatory conditions. Complying with those regulations can be daunting, but failure to do so has serious implications. Managing compliance, therefore, is imperative. Microsoft offers Compliance Manager, a unique cross-Microsoft-Cloud tool, that allows organizations to manage and navigate the complex terrain of regulations. Here is how Compliance Manager works to help your company comply with the law and applicable regulations and standards.

Who is Compliance Manager For?

Compliance Manager is for any company or organization that needs a comprehensive and proactive tool to assess, track, verify regulatory compliance and assign tasks related to the same. Anyone who must comply with regulations or standards like the following would benefit from this tool:

• EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• Health Information Portability and Privacy Act (HIPAA)
• International Organization for Standardization (e.g., ISO 27001 and ISO 27018)
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Essentially, the tool allows you to protect data and meet regulatory requirements via Microsoft cloud services.

What are Compliance Manager’s built-in features?

Compliance Manager features various tools to help your organization comply with regulations and standards pertinent to data protection and security. Here are three specific capabilities featured:

1. Assessment. The tool allows you to assess compliance from one place. Risk assessments are conducted on an ongoing basis.
2. Protection. Users can protect data across all devices, applications, and cloud services by using encryption, controlling access, and implementing information governance.
3. Response. Users can respond to regulatory requests through the incorporation of eDiscovery and auditing tools that allow you to locate relevant data for meaningful responses.

Through these features, Compliance Manager works to help you stay in and proactively manage compliance.

How does Compliance Manager Work?

Compliance Manager works by utilizing a single dashboard to see compliance stature. The dashboard provides summaries of your company’s assessments and action items. From those summaries, you can access controls and tools like exporting data to Excel.

You create assessments for the regulations and/or standards that matter to your company using Office 365, Azure, or Dynamic 365.

From these assessments, you receive actionable insights and detailed information about what Microsoft does to secure your data and help you comply with regulations.

Assessments

On the Assessments page, you are provided snapshots of your company’s compliance with specific regulations and standards — like those listed above — assessments of each.

For instance, compliance snapshots of your company will identify your company’s overall compliance with regulations like GDPR or standards associated with NIST or ISO. Each category is provided a “Compliance Score,” and the higher the score, the better your compliance stature.

On the same page, you are also provided with snapshots of assessments for each of these same categories. An Assessment Status is provided to let you know the status of the current assessment (e.g., in progress).

Under each of these snapshots, whether it is for compliance or assessment, you are additionally informed of:

• The created date;
• The modified date;
• The number of customer-managed actions and the number of those actions that have been addressed; and
• The number of Microsoft managed actions and the number of those actions that have been addressed.

Action Items

This page provides guidance on actions that could or should be taken to increase your Compliance Score. These are recommendations and are up to the company to implement.

Controls

Controls are the core of how Compliance Manager works. There are two controls: Microsoft and Customer.

Microsoft managed controls is a family of controls that align your company assessments with the standards and regulations. They are managed controls used to implement the assessment and assess compliance. Customer-managed controls, on the other hand, are controls that you as an organization manage. Here, you can implement actions recommended by Microsoft to increase your Compliance Score.

Compliance Manager is a tool to simplify compliance for organizations. It offers real solutions to a complex problem.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a 10-person team or a Fortune 500 conglomerate, relocating your office is going to take some planning and forethought. The last thing you want is to be forced to close up shop for an extended period, stalling your business due to unexpected issues.
Moving your office should signal growth to your client base; not chaos. So how can you take your business to the next level – and the next address? The key to a successful transition is preparation. You have a marketing strategy … a client care strategy … and a business building strategy … so why not a moving strategy?

Creating a Plan

It is never too early to start planning your big move. This means devising a plan for individual departments as well as the business as a whole. Remember, time is of the essence when it comes to moving an office. The faster you can get your new digs up and running, the faster your team can get back to work.
The first thing you need to do is to appoint a moving manager. This is the point man designated with coordinating the entire office relocation. This includes everything from packing up all necessary files and ordering new stationery to make sure every department has what they need to work on the go for a few days.

More than just a packing or moving expert, the relocation manager knows exactly what is necessary to get your office from point A to Point B with as little downtime as possible. Once you have a moving manager in place, it is time to begin assigning teams to handle individual aspects of the move.

Hire Professional Movers

Not every commercial moving company is equipped to handle large office relocations. Be sure to choose a company that understands the nuances of relocating a business. Remember, they will not be simply moving your desks and chairs from one place to another; they will also be responsible for securing sensitive files and making sure everything makes it to the new location safely.

Equip the IT Department Properly

One of the trickiest parts of moving an office is disconnecting and reconnecting quickly and efficiently. This can only be accomplished if your IT department has what they need to succeed. Here are some tips to create a hassle-free environment for them to work in:

• Give the IT department at least three months to plan the transfer. This will include developing a step-by-step outline for the move.
• Evaluate the new space well in advance of the move
• Order upgraded equipment weeks before moving day to ensure everything has arrived
• Coordinate all installations for several days before the actual office move
• Make sure that all cabling is installed and tested prior to moving day
• Move the IT department first. This will allow them to work to get the rest of the office up and running while boxes are still be brought to the new site.
• Install and test all work stations prior to the first scheduled workday in the new office.

Relocating an office can be exciting, but that doesn’t mean the process is always easy, or that it will run smoothly. A lot of things can go wrong if you don’t plan properly, so be sure to follow the guidelines here to ensure that your staff isn’t stressed and your clients don’t feel abandoned during the move. When handled properly, you should be able to move the entire office and have everyone back to work within a day or two.

Moving soon? Contact InfiNet Solutions to arrange a complimentary consultation on how we can assist in the technology side of your office move.  Call (402) 895--5777 or drop us an email.

If you’re like most people, you’ve got valid concerns about your personal privacy while browsing the internet. After all, Facebook and other organizations with a huge online presence have recently been caught dropping the ball regarding protecting the privacy of their users, so it’s only natural to wonder if your privacy is being further compromised and how it’s being done, which leads us to the primary question: What measures can the average internet user take to help ensure that the details of their browsing histories are limited to anyone who may be keeping tabs?

Fortunately, you’re not helpless in this situation. However, if you’re like many current users, you may be already using the “Do Not Track“ option in your browser and possibly gaining a false sense of security by doing so. Unfortunately, all this option really does is convey to the websites you visit that you don’t want them to log your browsing history, but it doesn’t prevent them from doing so, and many completely ignore the request. In fact, this option will probably be removed in the near future.

Fortunately, your browser offers other ways to help ensure your privacy. Following are several browser-specific tips and tools designed to help keep your history safe from the prying eyes of cyberspace.

Firefox

Firefox’s privacy controls are found under the Privacy & Security tab in the Options menu. You can block third-party cookies from there, accessing Content Blocking and selecting Private Mode. You can also choose to have your cookies automatically erased each time you end your browsing session. Firefox also allows users to customize this option on a site-by-site basis under the Settings menu, which results in pop-prompt requesting permission the first time you access individual websites. You can also specify and limit the kinds of data that you allow the browser itself to collect and store, such as technical details about Firefox’s performance and various extensions you’ve installed on your computer.

Safari

If you’re running Safari, you’ll be glad to know that the browser already does some of the work for you when it comes to protecting your privacy — disabling third-party cookies is Safari’s default mode. It also gives you the option of blocking all cookies, but users often consider that a pain because it creates a situation where auto-login doesn’t work, and they must log in every time they visit their favorite sites, including email and social media. Like Firefox, Safari has a private browsing mode that deletes cookies and history once the browser has been closed.

You can also access Safari’s Manage Website Data tab to see what websites have already logged and to delete that data if you want. Under the Preferences setting, you can click Websites to control which apps and sites you want to allow to access your computer’s microphone and camera.

Chrome

Chrome provides users with the capability to adjust their privacy settings using Content Settings under the Advanced Settings option. You’ll be able to disable cookies here, but that will leave you with the inconvenience of losing auto-login. Some people find the extra layer of protection worth the hassle, but cookies aren’t really a major culprit when it comes to privacy breaches because regular cookies can’t be seen by apps or other websites.

Third party cookies, on the other hand, are those used by advertisers to track the overall browsing activity of users for the purpose of creating targeted ad campaigns. You can easily disable these in Chrome by simply switching the “block third-party cookies“ option to ON in the Content Settings permissions. You can also limit access to your location, camera, microphone, and USB devices.

Edge

Microsoft Edge functions as a part of Windows, and its user-friendly interface makes customizing privacy controls easy. Under the Privacy & Security tab in Settings, there are options allowing users to allow all cookies, disable all cookies, and disable only third-party cookies. Edge also offers a private browsing mode similar to those of the other browsers mentioned above. Under the Advanced tab in the Settings menu, you can access Manage Permissions to control who sees your location and can access your microphone or camera.

However, the browser options given here are just a part of a bigger, more complex picture when it comes to online privacy. Google still records user activity and even saves all of your search history. You can delete this by going to your My Activity page on Google, selecting Search History from its dropdown menu, and clicking on Delete. To stop it for good, you can access Activity Controls and turn off tracking for Web & App Activity. Google also saves all of your voice searches, but you can remove them by going to their Voice & Audio page and clicking on Manage Activity.

Some users opt to use a VPN when browsing the internet because it generates proxy IP addresses, so although activity is tracked, it can’t be traced back to the user. Others install various ad blockers for even more protection, and the super-vigilant often opt for the added security of using a private browser. No matter what your privacy concerns, there’s a workable cocktail of tools and strategies that can provide you with a customized solution.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end — and on January 14, 2020, Microsoft will be stopping mainstream service for their highly popular Windows 2008 Server. If you are one of the millions of organizations who are still using this secure and highly stable solution, it may be time to look for other options before maintenance becomes an even greater challenge. The current Windows Server 2019 was released in November 2018 and since this is the fifth software release since Windows Server 2008, it’s not surprising that Microsoft has finally decided to deprecate mainstream support. Here are the answers to your burning questions about Windows Server 2008 end of support transitions.

What Does End of Service Mean for Windows Server 2008?

While the end of support period (EOS) for Windows Server 2008 is looming, that doesn’t mean the platform will stop working on January 14, 2020. It simply means that Microsoft will no longer be required to provide support and patches unless your organization has a specific contract in place to maintain support. All software and hardware have an effective lifecycle and Windows Server 2008 has been in a period of maturity for many years. This planned EOS period means that non-security updates, free support options, online technical content updates and free security updates on-premises will be halted by the Microsoft support team. Microsoft recommends that organizations immediately review options to shift to cloud-based options such as Microsoft Azure as this allows businesses an additional 3-year window of updates that are classified as Critical or Important by the Microsoft support teams. There are also options that allow customers to purchase Extended Security Updates at a premium to provide additional time to perform a migration.

What Are the Dangers of Windows Server 2008 Being Unsupported?

The security vulnerabilities alone should be reason enough to drive your business to make a decision to shift to a new solution. Cybercrime accounts for over billions of dollars of expenses and lost revenue for businesses each year, and a lack of security updates and patches can provide hackers with a door directly into your most valuable digital systems and information. With Accenture estimating that cybercrime could cost businesses over $5.2 trillion in the next 5 years, creating a secure environment for the backbone of your business is more crucial than ever before. That staggering statistic is based on the possibility of losses primarily to major health and life sciences organizations such as pharmaceutical companies. The potential for industrial espionage is significant when you consider the value of pharma knowledge and the capture of personally identifiable information.

What Happens to My Business When Windows Server 2008 Support Ends?

System vulnerabilities are nothing new for technology professionals, but many security-minded teams recommended freezing technology at Server 2008 as a stable and reliable solution for their business in years past. Now that the support is due to be deprecated, data managers are looking for ways to upgrade their server solutions or move directly to the cloud. Cloud-based solutions provide you with the flexibility and scalability that is needed for today’s modern organizations while offering a high level of security to combat the continual threats to your systems and data.

What Steps Should I Take Before Windows Server 2008 End of Support Date Arrives?

It’s not unusual for server upgrades to take quite some time, so it’s prudent to begin researching alternatives immediately. Begin with an audit of all the servers that are being used to determine the scale of the upgrade as well as any possibilities for consolidation. Server migration can cause a significant impact not only to your budget, but also to your users. If you do not already have a server migration strategy in place, now would be the time to map out those recommendations with a trusted technology partner. Finding a partner with a great deal of experience in Windows Server 2008 migrations or upgrades can help you avoid many of the land mines that might otherwise have a negative impact on your project.

What Are Best Practices for Windows Server 2008 Upgrades or Replacement?

While some organizations choose to go directly to the cloud for their server needs, there are other options for your business. You could decide to simply upgrade to a newer, stable version of Windows Server on-premise or utilize a private cloud or other hybrid solution to meet the needs of your business and stay within your budgetary requirements. Working with a technology solutions provider gives you the added firepower of external backup and recovery mechanisms in case something goes dramatically wrong during your transition period or in the event of a cyberattack.

Whether you decide to push forward with a full migration using your internal team or decide to work with a technology solutions partner, it’s crucial that you complete your investigations and make a plan of attack to migrate away from Windows Server 2008. There is an extremely high-risk factor when you stay with an unsupported software platform, making it all too easy for cybercriminals to infiltrate your weakened digital defenses.