Best of Lawrenceville - Computer and Network Support 2015

Fortify I.T. received Best of Lawrenceville 2015 for a SECOND consecutive year! I'm really excited about winning this again as it is a testament for how hard I work for my clients. Thank you everyone for the support!

Best of Gwinnett

Fortify I.T. was selected as Best of Gwinnett Honorable Mention for 2014!!! I was floored when I read the email come through for this award. I have always wanted to get into Best of Gwinnett. This means that I was somewhere in position 6-10 and not in the top 5.  I'm just super happy about this award!  I work so hard for my clients and this is a testament for how I work for my clients. 

Best of Lawrenceville

Fortify I.T. recieved Best of Lawrenceville for 2014 in August 2014 for Best Computer and Network Support!  I'm really excited for that award and very proud of it as I work very hard for my clients! 

Windows 10 Preview

I've been using Windows 10 preview and it's so far and above 8/8.1 it's not even funny!  The start menu is back, just shuffled around but I'll figure it out quickly but it's a nice addition (restoration more like it).  8's stupid full screen apps are windows. I know there is a dedicated 8 touch mode but I have a mouse and keyboard so it recognizes the difference and boots accordingly (so I have heard ). I won't have a problem with upgrading to 10 if it gets better than what it is now. Remember Microsoft's track record, every other release of a product is the good one and 10 is looking to be the good one. 

Antivirus Swaps

People if you get a message your antivirus is outbid date, for instance you get a 3 month subscription to McAfee or Symantec and it runs out, you need to uninstall it before you put on something else. If you do not, they will fight and scan the same files and cause your system to be really slow. 

Uninstall AV first then install new Antivirus.  

Fortify I.T. Inc, Best of Lawrenceville 2014!

I received an email the other morning saying that I received the Best of Lawrenceville for Computer and Network Support for 2014!  I'm really excited about that news.  I work really really hard at providing the best support that I can for my clients and that means I put in many long days but that means my clients are able to be productive.  I'm glad I got some recognition for how hard I work for my clients!

Press Release

Fortify I.T., Inc Receives 2014 Best of Lawrenceville Award

Lawrenceville Award Program Honors the Achievement

LAWRENCEVILLE August 21, 2014 -- Fortify IT, Inc has been selected for the 2014 Best of Lawrenceville Award in the Computer & Network Support category by the Lawrenceville Award Program.

Each year, the Lawrenceville Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Lawrenceville area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2014 Lawrenceville Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Lawrenceville Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Lawrenceville Award Program

The Lawrenceville Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Lawrenceville area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Lawrenceville Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community's contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Lawrenceville Award Program

Cat5 cabling

This is cat5 cabling done horribly wrong. Cat5 can't be split and daisy chained to the next port like these people tried to do. Pretty funny stuff. 

Stupid Microsoft

Microsoft is stupid. If you bring back the start menu now, it'll somewhat help to restore the crappy PC market. So stupid. 

 "Microsoft recently announced plans to reintroduce the Start Menu to Windows in an upcoming version of the operating system. While the plan was to roll out an update to Windows 8.1 and offer the Start menu later this year, it seems like this is no longer the case. Now Microsoft is reportedly looking to release the Start Menu with Windows 9, which is expected in April of 2015. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have faced a boat load of criticism and hatred, partly due to the removal of the Start button and Start menu. The restoration of a visible Start button on the taskbar was one of the key features of the Windows 8.1 update, released back in October of 2013."

XP updates until 2019!

Just read this. XP embedded will be updated until 2019 and XP can get the updates with a simple registry hack. 

From ZDNet.com (link to ZDNet at bottom):

As reported by Wayne Williams at Betanews and confirmed by us, a simple registry hack to a Windows XP system tricks Windows Update into providing updates for it.

Williams says that the hack, included just below, makes the system look like Windows Embedded POSReady 2009 which will continue to receive updated until April 9, 2019.

To apply the hack, create a text file with a .reg extension and the contents below:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady] 
"Installed"=dword:00000001

Run it by double-clicking in Windows Explorer. After this is done, if you run Windows Update, it will find several updates, as illustrated in this screen capture:

(Image: ZDNet/CBS Interactive)

The screen capture is from our own tests, which appear to work. Notice that two of the displayed updates are for WEPOS (Windows Embedded Point of Service) and Windows POSReady 2009. The others are for Windows Server 2003, which runs the same kernel and many other components as Windows XP.

This specific hack works only on 32-bit systems, but a 64-bit workaround is available at this page, which may have been Williams's source for the 32-bit hack.

We asked Microsoft for a comment, but due to the holiday we don't expect one immediately. If we hear back from them we will update this story.

As we would anticipate them saying, Windows XP has reached end of service for a reason: its underlying technology is old and inferior to that of current Windows versions. Despite receiving security updates, it is not possible to secure the system properly. The systems being impersonated, WEPOS and POSReady 2009, are embedded applications that are not designed to be used like regular desktop systems.

http://www.zdnet.com/registry-hack-enables-continued-updates-for-windows-xp-7000029851/

iPhone backup

Was at a client's today and they went around asking for people's phone numbers because they tried to update to the latest iOS, she has a 4s, so not sure what she was on before but she tried to updated it over the air and it failed to boot.   So she lost everything.

If you are going to update your iPhone or Android, backup your stuff with iTunes or however you backup an Android because I do not know.  If that happened and she had a iTunes backup, it would have said ok we need to do a clean boot and then restore and they would have been back up and running in no time instead of wasting days trying to get phone numbers back and whatever else they lost (apps, pics etc).

Backup THEN upgrade.  You've been warned.