24 Signs That Your Life Is Going Too Hi-Tech

1. You try to enter your password on the microwave.
2. You have 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
3. You consider “mouse elbow” a sports injury.
4. Your daughter is selling Girl Scout Cookies on her Web site.
5. The concept of using real money is becoming foreign to you.
6. Cleaning up the dining area means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.
7. The only jokes you “hear” come by e-mail.
8. Your cereal box says, “visit us online”, and you do.
9. You consider 2nd day air delivery painfully slow.
10. The reason you don’t keep in touch with some of your family: They don’t have e-mail addresses.
11. You chat with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven’t spoken to your next door neighbor in more than a year.
12. The computer you bought last week is now outdated and selling for half price.
13. You instant message your son in his room saying dinner is ready. He replied back to ask what you’re having.
14. You consider naming your daughter “Dot” and your son “Com.”
15. You order take-out food online.
16. Your family pet runs on batteries.
17. You can have more meaningful conversations with your car than your spouse.
18. You start calling telemarketers “spammers”.
19. You’ve never actually met your spouse in person.
20. You can turn your lights on, open the garage door, turn up your stereo, and see your back yard without leaving your computer.
21. You have 5 remote controls in your living room to operate one TV.
22. Your dog has an e-mail address.
23. Your idea of a great first date involves a cup of coffee and a chat room.
24. Your legs have fallen off from lack of use.

Is Anything In Life Really FREE?

Warning: If You’ve Downloaded Free Software
From The Internet, Your Computer May Be At Risk For
Viruses, Hackers, and Spyware!

We’ve all heard the saying that the best things in life are free, but I’m not sure they were referring to software.

Freeware (free software, not to be confused with open source software) such as the AVG anti-virus free edition, Spybot, and Ad-Aware are all programs you can download to your PC for the ultimate discount: free. However, you get what you pay for.

Great by Choice

I would like to recommend “Great by Choice” by Jim Collins. This book and all of the books Jim Collins has written are invaluable to building a Great company. Mr. Collins has many insights and observations that can help take your business from being a “Good” company to a “Great” company. This year we sent all of our clients “Great by Choice” on audio CD as a Christmas gift. Now everyone is talking about 20-Mile Marches, oxygen canisters and triangles and how they will help make their businesses more successful. I hope you decide to take your business and life from Good to Great. Mr. Collins can help you with the first step if you choose to read his book.

Why You Should Avoid Using A Debit Card When Shopping Online

If you shop online (and these days, who doesn’t?), you’ll want to make sure you use a credit card instead of a debit card to protect yourself from online scams and rip offs. The biggest advantage credit cards offer is a buffer for payment. By law, your maximum loss if your credit card number is stolen is $50, and most credit card companies and banks will cover the entire cost.

How To Avoid The Top 5 Budget Busting, Stress-Inducing Mistakes When Moving Your Office

Moving is always a pain, but it doesn’t have to be a horrific, expensive experience. The number one lament from someone who’s experienced a “bad” move is, “I didn’t know I needed to…” followed closely by “I completely forgot that…” In other words, it’s what you don’t do that makes the move a disaster.

To make your move easy and effortless, here are the 5 most common mistakes you want to avoid:

How to Electronically Sign Documents

In today’s fast pace world, signing documents electronically can help you keep up with the pace. So what is an electronically signed document, anyway? An electronically signed document will not allow changes to be made to the document after you have signed it.

So if someone sends you a contract via email. You can review the contract and electronically sign the document and return it via email. You do not need to print the file out, sign it with a pen, scan it and email the file back. You can sign it without paper and pen. You will have a copy of the document as you agreed to it as well as any other party that is involved. All parties will know that it was your signature, by third party verification.

“3 Lessons From Hurricane Isaac”

As we are just getting over the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac, I wanted to share 3 of the lessons that we confirmed as we helped our clients get back up and running. Hurricane Isaac confirmed 3 of Ener Systems’ best practices.

1. Having a backup internet connection does make a difference. Having both Charter and AT&T internet connections, kept us from being totally out of commission during Isaac’s aftermath. Our clients with redundant internet connections had the same experience.

5 Smart Tips to Know before Moving
Your Data to a Cloud-Based Application

1. Back It Up!
Migrating data to any new location is a mess and anything can (and usually does) go wrong. Therefore, make sure you have good, recent backup copies of everything before you make the move.

2. Maintain an On-site Copy
At first, moving to the cloud can be a bit scary. What can help mitigate the risk (and the fear) is keeping a local, on-site copy of your data and network image on an NAS (network-attached storage) device so that you have a local on-site copy in addition to the working cloud copy.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter:
Can Employers Demand Employees Give Up Their Login Info?

Here’s a new question that’s being discussed in the courts: Do employers have the right to ask new hires for their username and
password to various social media sites? According to the state of Maryland, the answer is, “No.”

Recently the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation that prevents employers in the state from asking prospective employees for their login information for various social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter.

How To Keep Your Kids Safe Online

Now that school is out, thousands of children will be surfing the Internet in their free time.

Although the Internet provides a tremendous learning tool for children, left unchecked it can also expose them to inappropriate material and unscrupulous individuals looking to exploit innocent children.

The statistics of online abuse towards children are alarming. According to a new survey conducted by NetAlert, nearly one child in every five using the Internet has been approached online by a stranger, and 47 per cent of children have been exposed to material that is pornographic, sexually explicit, violent, hateful, or that encourages them to participate in dangerous or illegal activities.