Virtual Reality has become more and more popular as time went on. Since 1935 when a short story called Pygmalion’s Spectacles was created by Stanley G. Weinbaum to 2016 when a pair of goggles that looks like a toaster oven is stuck to your face was created called the Oculus Rift made by a company named Oculus VR. Virtual Reality can make our lives so much easier and safer as we can learn about important life skills. A few examples are…

• Parenting – Training to be a mother or father within the 9 months of waiting for your new-born with a simulation can ease you into the new chapter of your life and will relieve any stress and worries that you are or may be experiencing.
• Medical Training – Training to be a nurse or a doctor with simulations is literally a life saver. You can start a simulation of an operation to practice so the real operation can be successful. It’s also a great way to teach nurses and doctors of how an operation works.
• Vehicle Training – Vehicle lessons can be simple and safe now with simulations. Sure, it may not be practical but it can feel just as practical as it would normally but the main aspect is that it puts your safety first while teaching you the basics.
• Military Training – Training to use a gun, drive a tank or pilot a jet are of the upmost importance when you’re in the army/military, even keeping fit and healthy too. That’s why simulations are really good for these sorts of lessons as it gives you a practical feeling such as thinking fast and being analytical. For example, a gun simulation may consist of you have free movement or being “On Rails” whilst shooting simulated enemies (A lasertag-esque simulation where you shoot programmed enemies or people with motion suits)

As stated earlier, virtual reality can make our lives safer but it can also cause less pollution, but how? Well earlier I said that vehicle simulations are safer than learning practically, and they are but that also means that there will be less petrol being burned meaning less pollution in the air which can also be said for water based vehicles. Virtual reality headsets may be wireless in the future meaning that you’ll be able to use your headset without it having to be plugged into a power socket which in turn means that less energy will be used causing less energy based pollution.

Why is Virtual Reality good for business purposes?

Virtual reality is good for business purposes as it allows companies to give virtual tours of a business environment, train new employees, and give a clear view of a product, etc. Many businesses have embraced virtual reality as a cost effective way of developing a product or service. For example, it enables them to test a prototype without developing several versions first (which can be time consuming and expensive). Plus, it’s a good way of detecting design problems and flaws at an early stage which can then be dealt with as soon as possible. Virtual reality technology has progressed so well so it has a high degree of realism and efficiency.

Some companies use virtual reality to help them gather data and analyse that data as well as forecasting trends in order to gain an edge over the competition. One example of this is a system developed by researchers at the University of Warwick, which is designed to help businesses gain a greater understanding of their data. Another use is virtual worlds, there are companies who use virtual worlds as a way of holding meetings with people worldwide. Virtual worlds solve communication problems with large numbers of employees in remote locations and it doesn’t cost much either. Virtual environments open the gateway to training courses, role playing scenarios, etc.

Why is Virtual Reality good for leisure purposes?

Virtual Reality isn’t good for leisure purposes, it’s amazing! With virtual reality you can be a knight who slays dragons in medieval times or an adventurer exploring some old temple, the possibilities are endless. If you couldn’t tell already, virtual reality is amazing for the gaming industry as it allows you to feel more involved in the action. The gaming industry has already done some astounding things but this is that shiny cherry on top of the already delicious cake and the future can most likely expand on all of the accomplishments that the gaming industry has made.

However, virtual reality hasn’t just made the gaming industry really successful, it has opened the gateway to the fitness side too. For people who are afraid of going outside or don’t find the gym a nice atmosphere, etc. People can now run a fitness simulation where they can exercise in the outdoors without going outdoors which is an amazing way to transform the gym into a run or a bike ride through the park.

If you are an Exchange administrator then you will come across the issue with leavers mailboxes needing to be transfered to another users mailbox. If you are looking after on-site exchange, then the process is slightly shorter as you don’t need to connect to the remote powershell. You simply log in to one of you exchange servers and run PowerShell as Administrator. Then you run following command and check all completed correctly:

Search-Mailbox -Identity “Old User” -TargetMailbox “Current User” -TargetFolder “Old-Mailbox” -LogLevel Full

To do the same on Office 365 you need to connect to remote PowerShell.

Make sure your account is enabled for remote PowerShell. You will need to be a member of Office 365 Global Admins or you will need to ask one of the Global Admin users to enable remote powershell by running following command on the Remote PowerShell:

Set-User [email protected] -RemotePowerShellEnabled $true

Check TCP port 80 is open between your PC and Office 365

Run PowerShell on your computer as Administrator

First of all you will need to set your execution policy to Remote Signed

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Then save youre credentials into a variable for later use, you will be prompted to insert them

$usercredential = Get-Credential

jnow we will save our session to a variable

$session = New-PSSession -configurationname Microsoft.Exchange -connectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell/ -credential $usercredential -authentication Basic -allowredirection

And then we will import it 

Import-PSSession $session

Now we can execute any commands we require, so in our case we want to transfer messages from one users mailbox to another, which is identical to the on-site exchange

Search-Mailbox -Identity “Old User” -TargetMailbox “Current User” -TargetFolder “Old-Mailbox” -LogLevel Full

IQ in IT proudly announces after winning the ‘Best Technology Company’ in 2015 and Best Green Company in 2014’ to be shortlisted this year for the following categories:

Best Tech Innovation of the Year

Best Business for Customer Service

Best Entrepreneur of the Year

Best Business for Staff Training and Development

Best SME Business

Best Apprentice Employer of the Year

Figment Agency our award-winning partner for premium web design and digital marketing services which won ‘Best Business for Marketing and Social Media’ in 2015 has also been nominated for two awards in ‘Best Entrepreneur’ and ‘Best Business for Marketing and Social Media’.

We are excited to be chosen for this years’ finalists and getting ready through stage 2 for interviews in September at the Judging Day in order to demonstrate and show that we are the best in our categories.

This year will be the fourth time of The Kingston Business Excellence Awards which presents the best businesses in the borough by celebrating their hard work at the prestigous black-tie Gala Dinner in October. We are also very excited to sponsor The Kingston Business Excellence Awards for the first time.

Make Business Happen CIC organises the awards together with its partners the Kingston Chamber of Commerce, KingstonFirst and the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames. According to Make Business Happen CIC, the 2016’s campaign will be the biggest and best yet to come so cross your fingers, full hands on board and wish us luck.

Counting down to Windows 10 first year anniversary and with it comes the end of the free upgrade which finishes this month, exactly in two weeks’ time on the 29th July.

This is the last day to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. After that date, home and business users will need to pay.

Let’s not leave it to the last minute and look at the main reasons for upgrading or at least for the top 10 to finally get the free upgrade:
 

• It’s free until 29^th July, after that Windows 10 Home will cost £99.99 and Windows Pro will be £189.99
• It’s still the same desktop you have enjoyed and all comes with it
• Get Cortana which is your Microsoft’s digital assistant and it’s now on your desktop
   
• Microsoft Edge replaces Internet Explorer as Windows 10’s default browser
• Quick start up and performance
• Access to Windows store: get apps, music and more
• Ubuntu-based Bash shell that can run Linux software directly on Windows
   
• Enterprise users can manage company-wide rollouts for Windows 10 updates
• Latest and many new security features. Microsoft calls it the most secure ever 
• Windows Hello come with a personal way to sign into your Windows 10 device with just a look or a touch without having to type in a password. Surface Pro 4, Surface Book and most PCs with fingerprint readers are ready to use Windows Hello. Read more…

How do you get your free Windows 10?

If you currently use Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 8.1, you will get a free upgrade to Windows 10 Home.

If your business currently uses Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate or Windows 8.1 Pro, it is easy to get your free upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. And finally, for XP or Vista users, Windows 10 will be a paid upgrade. 

If all is up-to-date with your Windows 7 or 8 installation, you should have seen a ‘Get Windows 10’ icon in the notification area on the Desktop taskbar – a white Windows logo.

Alternatively, click on the link to see the countdown until the 29^th July and go the ‘Upgrade for Free’

Upgrading before the 29th July will also entitle users to the ‘Windows 10 Anniversary Update’, which launches on 2nd August 2016. It includes the following features:

• Windows Ink, which is a new note and annotation feature, mainly aimed for touch screens and a stylus like the Surface Pen.
• Enhancements to Cortana and Edge
• Advanced security update

An upgrade will depend on a couple of factors such as the age of your device and how it is configured. Microsoft says that it will take about an hour to upgrade once the download is complete. Older devices may take longer so plan in some time or contact our IQ in IT team.

Contact us if you need any help with your Windows 10 upgrade or if you need advice for your business on any IT solutions. Call us on 0330 122 5226 or stay in touch with us on twitter.

Kingston Business Expo was even more successful this year than last year being officially part of London Technology Week 2016. The day was packed with engaging and inspirational speakers like Mark Wright, former Winner of The Apprentice from Climb Online and Francesca Monaco from Rocketseed, workshops and networking opportunities as well as an insight into the latest and greatest business technology.

The inspiring quotes of the day were:

Local MP James Berry for Kingston and Surbiton: ‘Kingston is booming’

Mark Wright, Founder of Climb Online: ‘If you want to earn more you’ve got to learn more’
 

Yesterday was the 4th year for the Kingston Business Expo which is yearly organised by the Kingston Chamber of Commerce and regarded as the only major business exhibition in the Royal Borough. It represents the single biggest networking opportunity of the year and over 500 attendees annually. Kingston University Business School is one of the largest business schools in the UK and renowned for being at the forefront of current business thinking, it’s modern and vibrant building provided the perfect setting for this year’s Business Expo.

IQ in IT is proud of having won the Best Expo Stand and event promotion at the Expo providing a Cyber Security workshop for businesses ‘Beyond Cyber Security’ with its partners Blue Solutions and Bitdefender as well as offering premium Web design and Digital Marketing services by Figment Agency.

Deane Mallison, from BlueSolutions and key speaker at ‘Beyond Cyber Security’ added: ‘People insure their cars but easily forget to look after their Mac’s or PC’s at home or at work’. Don’t leave it too late for just a couple of pounds a month.

If your company or if you are interested privately in securing your data, emails, MACs, PC, mobiles and more – get your free Bitdefender trial by clicking on the individual IOS system you have got Windows, Linux or MAC.

Due to popular demand, we have set up a webinar to perform a free demonstration of the Bitdefender solution. Please register for IQ in IT – Bitdefender Demonstration on Jun 30, 2016 @ 10:00 AM BST  

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Finally, a BIG ‘Thank You’ to our partners, customers and visitors who attended the workshop and visited our stand yesterday and congratulations to our lucky prize winner Georgina Denny from TWM Solicitors.

Any business needs finance, resources and a good business plan. With this comes IT which is crucial to make your business work on a daily basis throughout the year. A solid IT service provider is essential and the backbone of a company. However without a professoinal website it is not easy to attract customers.

IQ in IT has partnered up with local award-winning fellow Figment Agency to provide premium web design and digital marketing.

Steven Grant, Founder of Figment Agency says: Since we won the Kingston Excellence Award 2015 as Best Creative and Media Sector Business it has been an incredible year. We have not only attracted new clients but also local partners with whom we work jointly together in providing complete IT business solutions.

Katerina Damcova, MD of IQ in IT adds: We are proud to have partnered with Figment Agency and are able to offer tailor-made web design and digital marketing services. We provide complete IT solutions for SME’s and corporates so our clients can focus on their business while we look after their IT.

IQ in IT and Figment Agency will be present during the London Technology Week at the Kingston Business Expo on the 22^nd June as well as at the Guildford Exposition on the 15^th June.

Come and talk to us. We look forward to seeing you there!

Need help to attract new clients with a stunning and bespoke website? Figment Agency

Need a reliable and supportive IT services provider to sort out your business IT? IQ in IT

One simple way to keep your information secure is to make sure you and your employees use strong passwords. How can I determine whether or not my password is strong? There are three factors.

The strength of a password can be determined by its: 

   Length

  Complexity

  Randomness

Password Length is the number of characters that are used in the password. The longer a password is, the more difficult it is to guess.

Password Complexity involves the characters used to form a password. A complex password uses characters from at least three of the following categories:

   English uppercase (A-Z)

   English lowercase (a-z)

   Digits (0-9)

   Nonalphanumeric characters (!@#)

   Unicode characters

Password Randomness is a password that does not make sense and so it is not easily guessed by others.

To keep your information safe it is important to have an expiration date on all passwords. This is known as maximum password age. There is a setting in Windows which your administrator can use to choose how many days there will be before your password expires. There is also a minimum password age setting which determines the amount of days that a password must be used for before a user can change it. There is also a setting that determines the number of unique passwords that you have to use before you can re-use a password. This is known as password history. Password history stops users from repeatedly using the same password. This will help to keep your companies information safe.

It is important to constantly remind your employees of this to make sure to keep your company’s data safe.

Account lockout is the amount of incorrect logon attempts allowed before the system locks an account. Using this will allow you to stop people from being able to access your information if they cannot get your password after a limited amount of tries.

Microsoft provides three separate settings with respect to account lockout:

  Account lockout duration

  Account lockout threshold

  Reset account lockout counter after

Account lockout duration is the amount of time you will be locked out of your account for as a result of too many incorrect password attempts. This should be set by your company’s administrator.

Account lockout threshold determines the amount of failed logon attempts set that will cause you to be locked out of your account. This issue can only be resolved by the administrator of your company resetting the account or the time specified by the account lockout duration expiring.

Reset account lockout counter after determines how many minutes there must be before the amount of bad logon attempts resets. This only has meaning when the account lockout threshold is specified.

Using the same password for multiple accounts

It is NOT a good idea to use the same password for different accounts. If you did a hacker would be able to log in to your businesses documents, your social media page and much worse. They could do all of this just by finding out your computer logon password. That is why each of your passwords should be different.

Password Strength

To give you an example of a way to make a password difficult to guess but easy to memorise here is a comic on password strength made by https://xkcd.com/936/

Password Manager

A problem that many people have is that they forget their passwords. In order to remember your passwords it would be a good idea to use a password manager tool. Password manager is a software app that allows the user to store all of their passwords. This app will encrypt them and once you enter your password for the app it will give you access to all of your passwords.

I have a table below to show the prices, compatibility and features of different Password Manager Applications. Different Applications are suitable for different computers. This table should help you to decide which Password Manager App you want to use.

The one that I would recommend is RoboForm Everywhere because it is fairly priced, works with most operating systems, most devices and browsers and if anything goes wrong it is easy to get in contact with them.

Nowadays, Ransomware and cyber-attacks have become common threats on the internet. Based on a recent security breach survey by the government and conducted by PWC in 2015 shows that

​ 90% of large organisations and 74% of small businesses had a security breach, this is an increase on the 2014 and 2013 figures

 the average cost to a large organisation started from £1.46m and from £75 on average for a small business

These figures only show how important it is to be protected against these continuous evolving cyber-attacks and anti-malware. It is crucial to any business having a sophisticated Anti-malware software working in conjunction with a resistant firewall.

However choosing the correct firewall has been a time consuming and tremendous challenge for anyone especially small businesses, decisions on which infrastructure to take, resources to invest and so on – Welcome to the cyber jungle!

How can a firewall help?

Firewalls can be either soft or hardware based or both. A Hardware firewall is typically found in a network/ broadband router and includes firewall features. Software firewalls are personal firewalls, which protect a single PC however some enterprise firewalls have both.

 ​   Blocks or prevents unauthorized access to a network

    Barriers to keep critical elements out of a network

    Works as filters for your network traffic by blocking incoming packets (small chunks of data) of information that are seen as unsafe

    Control traffic flowing in and out of networks through packet filtering, which is filtering and analysing chunks of data

What is important to know when it comes to decide for a firewall?

    Ensure your business is protected and has got the appropriate up-to-date anti-virus in conjunction with a resistant firewall

    Your type of business: Are you a small to medium sized company or an enterprise?

    What is your market: For example a financial company needs extra comfort and security and therefore may need latest and top of the range firewalls

    Is your staff working from home or other locations outside the office and uses VNP connection or cloud products?

    What features are you looking for from within a firewall? Will you require UTM features? Unified Threat Management is a category of security      
        appliances such as anti-virus, email security, application filtering, web filtering?

  Have a short list of rules for the firewall to implement for the applications, i.e. block video in Google+ hangouts however allow videos in Skype
  Choose a firewall with accurate random access memory RAM
  Be aware of Network address translation choices (NAT) choices when choosing your firewall

   Ensure that your employees understand the companies’ security policy when working from outside the office or with their own device 
       Bring Your Own Device ‘BYOD’)

Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, Anti-malware… – Is your IT system secured? 

The Internet has become more and more part of our everyday lives. It has enhanced the way we live and work and made it much easier for people to get information, share and communicate. However with these new ways of technology comes security threats, such as viruses, worms, spams, malware, spyware and phishing. These are all types of malicious programs or also known as malware.

These malicious programs are man-made and used to infect your computer and system in various ways. Some are transmitted through portable devices or over network connections such as the Internet and are damaging programs, which will attempt to install themselves on your PC. They can have several purposes such as sending emails to other people to pass the infections on, to deleting files in order to stop programs working or documents from opening. Some can allow complete remote control of your PC.

Others collect information about the users without their knowledge or permission such as personal information, logins, PINs and passwords. This could be achieved through pop-up adverts, false websites etc. They will then forward the information to the interested third party like cybercriminals and hackers.

Therefore, it is crucial to know how to protect your business against it and to understand new types of online attacks. Just to give you an idea, Symantec, an American tech company published a report in 2014, which revealed that more than 317 million new pieces of malware. That means almost 1 million new threats were released each day.

How can we help to secure your bit?

​ IQ in IT works with Bitdefender, the #1 ranked Anti-Malware Technology protecting against Anti-malware, Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, Anti-phishing, Trojan and Rootkit detection and more Click for more product details

​ Bitdefender Anti-malware keeps your business safe from dangerous threats.  The software is effective at both detecting and removing viruses if your PC is already infected. It will also help to detect and remove spyware, click for more information

​ The Anti-malware software is only as good as the latest update to protect against known threats. So to keep your anti-virus software up-to-date and renewed is fundamental, including on all PCs, MACs, laptops, smartphones and tablets

 We can help you to train your staff on anti-malware as well as how to set-up download restriction at work

Security has always been a priority to us. This year we aim to make it the most secure year yet.

           Contact us if you want your security review or anti-malware in place.

 0330 122 5226                    email us [email protected]                   stay in touch twitter

Yours,

 – Clever about IT

Nowadays, there is a simple but secure solution to protect data stored on your payment cards, ID card and ePassport from theft and fraud. Billions of contactless cards are used worldwide every day for payment, access control and other applications. Radio frequency identification (RFID) a technologies that uses radio waves to automatically identify people or objects, has made life easier, but renders data more vulnerable to theft, cloning and accidental transactions.

The Contactless Card Protector manufactured by Databac Group effectively blocks RFID signals sent to readers or smartphones by fraudsters to illegally copy personal information stored on your credentials.

How does it work?

Simply place the Contactless Card Protector in your wallet with your contactless card and you are protected against digital theft and accidental payment (works if your contactless card protector is in contact with your contactless cards). It is credit card sized as standard for a perfect fit.
 

Which cards are protected? Payment card    ID & access control card    Loyalty and membership card    Keycard and security badge  Transport card and ePassport

Call us now for security review   0330 122 5226 or stay in touch with us on twitter

Yours,

 – Clever about IT