November 2016 - Systech | Managed Services

Section 179: A Tax Write-Off Every Business Needs to Know About

As a business, if you haven’t already taken advantage of Section 179 – you could be leaving money on the table. According to Section179.org, “Section 179 is a tax code created to help businesses.”. This tax code allows businesses to deduct the full amount of the purchase price of equipment (up to $500,000.00) this year as an incentive to purchase, finance, or lease equipment. By deducting the entire cost of your business equipment purchase you lower the amount of taxes you pay on that equipment.

November 17, 2016 Read more

Apple Stops Support for PPTP VPN on MacOS Sierra & iOS 10

Latest News

Apple has stopped support for PPTP VPN on MacOS Sierra & iOS 10 as of the September release. While adding many great features (like Siri, Universal Clipboard for cro ss-device copying and pasting, auto unlock) the out-of-the-box functionality for PPTP VPN was removed. There are solutions available to configure and use your existing PPTP VPN but they all require installing a 3rd party application. The most main stream solution is a 3rd party application called Shimo. The major downside is having to pay $50 because Apple decided to pull support for this VPN type. The free alternative to Shimo is another application called FlowVPN, just be sure to overwrite the default VPN server address when setting up your VPN connection.

November 11, 2016 Read more

The “Your PC Is Infected” Pop-Up: How to Recognize a Scam

Security

We’ve all seen this pop-up scam at one time or another. We are going to show you how to recognize a scam such as this. These days, with technology everywhere and information at your fingertips it’s much easier for scammers to play upon people’s behavioral patterns. This is the exact purpose of the, “Your PC is infected” pop-up scam where your screen gets frozen and a pop-up tells you that the only way to fix it is to call a phone number for support. This is so successful because people’s natural inclination is to call and get this fixed immediately. Whatever you do – DO NOT CALL THIS PHONE NUMBER! This actually happened to my uncle a while back and he made the mistake of calling the phone number. The fake support technician then installed a remote access tool on his computer after my uncle let him in. Long story short, they stole about $2500.00 from his bank accounts (since he saved his passwords in his browser) and the cost of reloading his workstation. Below is an example of this scam in action:

November 10, 2016 Read more

High Availability: 24/7 for Small to Mid-Sized Businesses

Business | Productivity

Often Small and Mid-sized businesses are limited in their technology choices due to costs and availability. They are too small for enterprise level software and wouldn’t realize any value from such a large investment but need a way to stay competitive. At the same time – they might have outgrown technology solutions that used to work for them. They are now in a technological no-mans land where seemingly few solutions exist. This is the perception of many small & mid-sized businesses when considering 24/7 operations as a competitive advantage in a global marketplace. Amazon is a great example of how their anytime, anywhere approach to commerce has them posting record breaking $513 Million profits last April.

November 10, 2016 Read more

Why Every Business Should Have a Domain vs Workgroup Environment

Business | Security

In business computing there are two standards when using Windows: Domain vs Workgroup environments. As a business owner or IT manager, it is critical to understand the benefits and drawbacks of both types of IT environments so that you can make the best possible decision about your company’s IT future. This is especially important when capacity planning, when expanding your workforce, or when planning major IT upgrades to your environment. You can end up spending more time and money in the long run without the correct IT infrastructure in-place.

November 7, 2016 Read more

2016 November