IQ in IT was pleased to be part of the Enterprise Start-up Fair last week at the Kingston University Business campus. We presented to the Start-ups our products and services such as VOIP Telephones, cloud computing, cloud email, anti-virus, hosting,  internet connectivity, IT support and much more.

For the fair we especially offered three IT Start-up packages to help young entrepreneurs to keep their costs down and support them with a workspace, telephone system and broadband package payable on a monthly basis. Check out our latest offer

It was a pleasure meeting all these young and enthusiastic start-ups with their amazing bright ideas sharing with us their biggest obstacles when setting-up their new business ventures which were Finance, Sales & Marketing and IT.

We can definitely help you with all your IT needs and hope that we can help your business grow and thrive.

Yours,

 – Clever about IT

IQ in IT is extremely proud to be awarded as the BEST Technology Company 2015 at last month’s sold-out Kingston Business Excellence Awards. It does not stop here, our Technical Director Luke Whitelock, is delighted to be highly commended in the category of the BEST Young Entrepreneur 2015.

The Kingston Business Excellence Awards are developed and managed by Make Business Happen CIC, in association with NatWest, on behalf of the Kingston Chamber of Commerce, Kingstonfirst and the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

The winners of the 2015 Kingston Business Excellence Awards were announced at the gala dinner at Holiday Inn Kingston South, hosted by celebrity broadcaster and columnist Julia Hartley-Brewer. This is the second year in a row for such a prestigious event which has shown its great success for its vibrant and innovative business community in such a short time. Many local companies participated as sponsors within categories and the event itself.

IQ in IT is a cutting edge IT Company based in Kingston, South West London. We offer cloud based services on demand with a personal touch. Our key products are Virtual Desktops and Servers which let you work from anywhere from any device securely, Cloud (VoIP) phones packed with a lot of features, IT solutions, support and more.  We are passionate about technology and always looking to provide new and better products and services to our current clients. We understand that no two businesses are the same and so we tailor solutions to your business’s individual needs’ around London and the UK.

At the esteemed gala dinner, Ros Morgan, Chief Executive of Kingstonfirst presented the Best Technology Company for 2015. She said: ‘IQ in IT is small but innovative and solution-driven business. It creates great value and delivers real impact for existing and due businesses’.

Katerina Damcova, Managing Director was thrilled to receive the award in person. Winning not only this year but also at last year’s award as Best Green Company, she proudly said: ‘A big thank you to our amazing team and to all our clients for your trust, loyalty and support during all these years – we could not have done it without you and we do hope to have you on board for a long time’.

Photo source: Chris Gray and Laurence Grant

Six months ago, exactly on 21^st April, Google, the world’s biggest search engine introduced its new search algorithm favouring mobile friendly websites, the ones with with large text, easy to click linksand re-size to fit screen etc. This update purely effects the mobile world and not on searches from tablets or desktops. Google said that this would have a ‘significant impact’ on the mobile search results and it will focus on boosting the ranking of mobile friendly pages. 

According to research, over the past year web searches done by mobile users have grown tremendously and approximately 50% of online traffic comes now from mobile devices. Google wants to make a statement for these users to have a good experience when searching and clicking on links.

We have also designed and published our mobile friendly webpage recently. If you want to see our mobile friendly website just open our website www.iqin.it on your mobile device. You can also check your website for free to see if it is mobile friendly.

Last but not least, Google has further amended its policy recently and from November will no longer consider websites mobile friendly, which show an app install interstitial that hides a significant amount of content from the search result page to the website. These types of ads often come up when searching on the web and encouraging users to download an app rather than visiting the website. So watch that space, a lot more to come and in the meantime we would like to hear from you…

Have you made your website mobile friendly yet?  What has been your experience so far?   Have you seen increased traffic or changes to it yet? 

Your IQ in IT Team – We can help you with ALL your IT needs.

Say cheese! Have you smiled today? Probably this morning in order to access your computer or mobile device at home or at work.

Perhaps you have heard of Windows Hello which is a new feature within the new Windows 10. Windows Hello lets you login without a password. Just a smile gives you instant and a more secure access to your device. Windows Hello recognises YOU by using your facial or iris detection, not a photo of you. So it gets much more personal however until then you need a RealSense camera in order to set it up.

Read also our article about the latest on Windows 10 – worth the upgrade?

Any questions chat or tweet with us we would love to her about all your experience or help you out – we are here to help you with all your IT needs at home or at work!

Your  IQ in IT team –  Kingston – London – UK

A lot of you will be wondering what is actually hiding underneath the label “Cloud Phone“. In our terms we describe Cloud Phones as a hosted VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) solution with a self service management portal. Our portal lets you manage your extensions, direct dials, change call routing depending on the time and day, forward and route calls, hold conference calls, video calls, call recording, interactive voice response, music on hold and a lot more accessible to manage with a click of a button. Our Cloud Phones are a flexible modern solution matching the ever-changing needs of todays business. 

How do cloud phones work?

When you place an order with us for a new phone system, we can get you up and running within 24 hours. We will get your phones delivered to you and configure your system according to your requirements. Once your new phones arrive, all you have to do is to open the box and get your phone plugged into your network. Our cloud phones run over the internet, therefore it does not matter where in the world you are located. All you need is an internet connection and then you can call your colleagues’ extensions and, of course, no matter what your geographical location is, it’s all free. This is especially helpful to customers with branch offices abroad enabling them to reduce international call cost and, more importantly, improve communication. Our phones are very clever and as soon as you plug them in, they will auto-configure themselves by contacting our servers. Then all you are left to do is to dial that number.

But how does the cloud phone really work?

Well, once you are set up on our system, your phone device will talk to our PBX system. PBX is a system which handles all the calls, manages call routing, recording, music on hold and loads more. When you call within the digital network, the voice quality is a lot higher (we offer HD voice by default) and for internal calls this will be handled only by our servers. With calls to other VoIP networks this will be routed over the internet to the correct server to establish the connection. If you are calling someone with the old type of phone line (PSTN) this will be routed through our PSTN gateway into the old type of telecom networks.

What about mobiles?

We are very close to lauching our “Cloud Mobiles” to offer even more complete service. Our cloud mobile phones are part of your phone system, able to be configured and changed on the go. These provide internal transfers via extension, secure mobile data, call recording and all the other features available on our Cloud Phones.

The first question when a new operating system is coming into the market is: Shall I upgrade or shall I wait? And probably the next question you will ask yourself is: Is it safe?

Well, let’s not get worried now as the best Windows yet is here. There are at least 10 reasons for upgrading however I will give you the top five reasons and even more on the latest and greatest:

• It’s free
• It’s still the desktop you love and your stuff comes with you
• Get Cortana and get to know the Edge
• Quick start up and performance
• Access to Windows store: get apps, music and more

And the really new feature in Windows 10 is Cortana – your new personal assistant. As Cortana sounds like a lovely female name she will help you with anything you have given her access to and she can even talk. In order to get in touch with Cortana you simply type a question in the search box on the taskbar or you select the microphone and ask Cortana, like ‘Change my 3pm event to 4pm’.

Also, multi-tasking for the user should now be so much easier. She will help you to find things not only on your computer, she will manage your calendar, find files, chat and more.

The best one to come, Windows 10 is mostly a mobile operating system, just like Apple iOS and Google Android, it’s designed to run also on smartphones and tablets. So now we have got it all under one umbrella. With the all new OP system they are never perfect and finished however which system is perfect? None however upgrade to a newer system are recommendable, easy and in this case it is for free.

On the other hand, not everyone will get Windows 10. If you have got Windows 7 or 8 you could wait a bit to see how all goes as Microsoft will roll out its new system in waves.

So overall the main plus for an upgrade is your own personal assistant ‘Cortana ‘ and for those who like apps, music, fun and more to have access to Windows store.

All new operation systems are easy and fast to upgrade and just a touch or a click away. So if you go ahead don’t forget to ensure that your privacy settings are set as you had it in your previous version (set your privacy settings under Customize settings, and more is available in settings for location, camera, microphone, contacts, calendar, apps and more).

And finally in order to upgrade you need to reserve first on the Microsoft web page and wait.

Any questions chat or tweet with us we would love to hear about all of your experiences or help you out!

Your  IQ in IT team

Today more than ever, security should be a priority for every business. Small and medium sized businesses are the ones who suffer most when under attack.

One of the most common ways to attack is to use security vulnerability in software in applications like Java, Adobe and operating systems, including the perceived invulnerable MAC OS. I am sure everyone remembers the 2 major vulnerabilities of 2014 making the headlines. The heart bleed in OpenSSL and the shell shock affecting all Unix based systems. The way to protect your business against these attacks is to always apply all security patches for all OS systems and applications.

Another type of attack which has been growing rapidly since 2014 is Ransomware. This is probably the most dangerous threat as it encrypts all files on the user’s computer and any storage available on the network. Ransomware usually spreads through emails with various attachments pretending to be a fax or an invoice. To protect yourself, never open emails which look suspicious, even if they come from someone you know. If you do make the mistake of opening one of these, you will start to see various types of files with decrypt in the name and when you open your file it won’t be readable. Time is precious as encryption is time consuming and not all files will be encrypted initially. Shut your computers and server down, including any network attached storage and call a specialist to help you stop further encryption. This is important as the encryption is sophisticated (RSA-2048) and is pretty much impossible to decrypt with the current technology available. Once your system is infected, the attacker will request a payment in bitcoins, which is an untraceable currency, to provide you with the decryption key. The only options to get your data back are to recover it from an uninfected backup or pay the ransom. The ransom increases with time and is only available for limited period until it gets destroyed. So please take action now and make sure you have a working backup before it’s too late. 

IQ in IT are pleased to launch their brand new website. We now support live chat and many more features!

RPC over HTTP provides a connection to exchange servers, from outside the organization, without the need of a VPN connection. This is great thing if it works, but very hard to troubleshoot when it goes wrong and even harder troubleshooting somebody else’s server when you have no idea what  it is that has changed to break it. I’ll mention a great tool to point you in the right direction of troubleshooting as there is so much which could go wrong and blindly trying it all might even damage your server more. This tool was created by Microsoft and is found at https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com This is one of the best things from Microsoft. It helps to narrow down the issue to the exact part which is not working correctly. I was getting this message: The connection to the Microsoft Exchange Server is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action. I have had this problem before, but it’s not quite the same problem, so before you spend hours searching or guessing what the problem is, consider running the connectivity test and then pick the solution. My problem of course was not only one, but multiple issues. Easy solutions to this problem:

• Check all required exchange services are started (system attendant etc.)
• Check event log for any errors related to this problem.
• Re-install RPC over HTTP (add/remove windows components)

If any of these worked, then great, if not here is the harder part: Run the RPC over HTTP exchange analyzer, what the results showed for me was issue with the RPC ports. This is very useful tool to set your registry to the correct values http://www.petri.co.il/software/rpcnofrontend.zip remember to restart the server after making the change and backup your registry before, just in case. To check the port settings see following registry keys HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Rpc\Rpcproxy – required ports are 6001,6002 and 6004, strange range of ports up to 5000 was set in my case. Re-running the connectivity analyzer then showed an error with the GAL, which I suspected earlier, but being part of multiple issues this wasn’t resolved as I have reverted my changes back to original. I then remade the change to the GAL permissions, which should be list, read and open address list and the issue was solved!!! The easiest way of all to fix this problem is to migrate the customers email to our new Cloud Email offering and put the SBS 2003 server to rest and no longer have to worry about supporting Exchange.

I have decided to write this article after spending weeks troubleshooting Exchange 2003 on Small Business Servers with various active sync issues.There are many issues and many solutions, I will try to describe the majority of problems which I have come across and troubleshooting steps. 1: Check your Exchange services are started ( default services settings)

2: Service pack 2 for Exchange 2003 Not a part of standard update to download follow this link: http://goo.gl/of9DE. To check if you have service pack installed, go to Exchange System Manager, right-click your server and go to properties. This is required by iOS 3: Check that your firewall allows traffic on port 443 4: Check the Exchange network connection is at the top of the list in advance network settings 5: Check directory security in IIS Exchange Virtual Directory

• Authentication = Integrated & Basic
• Default Domain = NetBIOS domain name – e.g., yourcompany*
• Realm = yourcompany.com
• IP Address Restrictions = Granted Access
• Secure Communications = Require SSL IS ticked (very important)

Microsoft-Server-Activesync Virtual Directory

• Authentication = Basic
• Default Domain = NETBIOS domain name – e.g., yourcompany*
• Realm = NETBIOS name
• IP Address Restrictions = Granted Access
• Secure Communications = Require SSL and Require 128-Bit Encryption NOT ticked

Exchange-oma Virtual Directory

• Authentication = Integrated & Basic
• Default Domain = NETBIOS domain name – e.g., yourcompany*
• Realm = NETBIOS name
• IP Address Restrictions = Restricted to IP Address of Server
• Secure Communications = Require SSL and Require 128-Bit Encryption NOT ticked OMA Virtual Directory
• Authentication = Basic
• Default Domain = NETBIOS domain name – e.g., yourcompany*
• Realm = NETBIOS name
• IP Address Restrictions = Granted Access
• Secure Communications = Require SSL and Require 128-Bit Encryption NOT ticked

Public Virtual Directory

• Authentication = Integrated & Basic
• Default Domain = NetBIOS domain name – e.g., yourcompany* (no more than 15 characters)
• Realm = yourcompany.com
• IP Address Restrictions = Granted Access
• Secure Communications = Require SSL IS ticked (very important)

6: ASP.Net version should be set to 1.1 for all the above directories 7: HTTP keep-alives needs to be enabled Under Default Website Properties on the Web Site tab check if the http keep-alives is enabled 8: Advanced Website Identification Make sure this is set to All Unassigned with port 80 on the Web Site tab 9: Uninstall IPV6 Make sure IPV6 is not installed, if installed uninstall 10: SSL certificate Make sure the name on the certificate matches fully qaulified domain name for the ActiveSync, check on the Directory Security tab, View Certificate 11: import ssl certificate For the iPhone and windows mobile you will have to import the certificate to the phone, easiest option is to publish the cert on the web, then navigate to it with your mobile browser and install the certificate Godaddy Certificate Instructions To Install Your SSL in Microsoft IIS 6

1. From the Start menu, click Run….
2. Type mmc and click OK. The Microsoft Management Console (Console) opens.
3. From the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap In.
4. Select Certificates, and then click Add.
5. Select Computer Account, and then click Next.
6. Select Local Computer, then click Finish.
7. Click OK to close Add or Remove Snap-ins.
8. In the Console window, expand the Certificates folder.
9. Right-click Intermediate Certification Authorities, mouse-over All Tasks, then click Import.
10. In the Certificate Import Wizard, click Next.
11. Click Browse to find the certificate file.
12. In the bottom right corner, change the file extension filter to *.p7b.
13. Select the appropriate certificate file and click Open.
14. Click Next.
15. Select Place all certificates in the following store.
16. Click Browse, select Intermediate Certification Authorities, and then click Next.
17. Click Finish.
18. Close the Console window.
19. From the Start menu, go to Administrative Tools and click Internet Information Service console.
20. Right-click the website or host name for your certificate.
21. Click Properties.
22. Click the Directory Security tab.
23. Click Server Certificate..
24. The Welcome to the Web Server Certificate Wizard window opens. Click Next.
25. Select Process the pending request and install the certificate, and then clickNext.
26. Click Browse. Select all files, and select your certificate file.
27. Click Next.
28. Verify the Certificate Summary, and then click Next.
29. Click Finish.

This is another situation where a migration to our Cloud Email service would remove the pain of managing an aging SBS 2003 or 2008 system. Have a look around our website to see how our services can make your life easier. Usefull tools http://goo.gl/BA7ZJ http://goo.gl/Xsx3t Resources used http://goo.gl/rpqBh http://goo.gl/p2uwN http://goo.gl/Hm81o