A simple way of understanding firewalls

Are you just an average every day employee that use the internet on a regular basis?  You have more than likely heard of the word ‘firewall’.  I will explain what a firewall does in simple terms.

When an employee tries to access a website such as Facebook, Twitter or any other social network, they will receive the message of “Firewall used” on their computer screen.  What does this mean?  This is the function of a firewall.  A firewall protects the entire company network so hackers are not able to enter into your private network.

A potential hacker may be able to break into firewalls accessing the company’s network and taking valuable information.  But having the right firewall is a barrier used to keep the hackers away.

If you own a company that employees more than one employee and using your network that is not secured by a firewall, you are not safe!  If you don’t protect your network with a firewall then the users on your network can access anything on the internet and would leave their footprints for a potential hacker to find.

Using a firewall = safe network.  A firewall will function with the help of a set of instructions which will prevent hackers from accessing your network.

Curious about what type of firewall your company should have?  Don’t hesitate to call or email our sales department at sales@btinet.com to make sure your company is safe from hackers!

Aliens helping Earthlings – Bismarck, ND

This coming Monday, February 27th,  Space Aliens Grill & Bar AND Space Aliens BBQ Pit (downtown Bismarck) are hosting a fundraising event for the Basin Electric March for Babies team.

You will need to take a copy of the letter to one of the restaurants and 20% of your total purchase will be donated!  Please use the following form to obtain a copy of the letter.

Good for lunch, happy hour and dinner!!!

Thank you for supporting the babies in North Dakota.

Don’t forget to share this offer with your friends, family, neighbors, etc!

YES - email me the letter!

Email(required)

Please list your Name and Email Address(required)

Are you tweeting?

Social Networking is buzzing all around us.

 

Follow us at http://twitter.com/BTInet for up to the minute information.

Setting up IMAP email on iPad™, iPhone™, iPod®

Did you recently purchase or receive an ipad, ipod or iphone as a gift?  Do you need help configuring your email?  It is your lucky day; I have the perfect instructions just for that!

To set up IMAP:

• Tap on Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account.  Tap on Other and then Add Mail Account.
• Enter your information
  • Name
  • Address
  • Password

• Description (e.g. Work Account, Home)

• SAVE

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NOTE:  If IMAP is not selected, tap the IMAP button.

Check your connection by using Safari to open a web page. If you are connecting with Wi-Fi, note that many public Wi-Fi networks require users to sign in to use the service.

To turn off Wi-Fi:  Tap Settings > Wi-Fi.

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Incoming Mail Server and Outgoing Mail Server Information:

• Host Name
• User Name
• Password

Tap Save and the device will verify the setting and return to the Mail, Contacts, Calendars screen.

What does it mean when you get an “over quota” message?

Your web-mail e-mail messages and attachments are stored on a central server that is secure and frequently backed. When you receive a message that you are “over quota,” it means that your mail and attachments take up more than 1GB on the server. This space includes emails used in folders and even emails in your trash. Over quota messages are automatically generated and sent out. If you get an over quota message, please take immediate action and remove old mail and attachments.  Remember you won’t be able to receive any other new messages until you do.

Here are some tips for controlling the size of your mailbox:

1. Download your Email to a mail client like Outlook/Outlook Express or Thunderbird. Once you download messages to a mail client on your PC, it removes the mail from our server and makes certain you have storage for new Email messages. When you download your Email to your PC, you are no longer using Webmail storage. As a side note, using an Email client on your PC takes away the ability to see messages that have been downloaded to your PC using the Webmail client (webmail.btinet.net).
2. If you do leave some messages on the in Webmail so that they remain accessible through the online client, don’t forget to periodically clean out any old messages you no longer need. Also, remember to check your Sent Items folder for messages you no longer need.
3. Save Email attachments (photos, video clips, documents, etc.) to your PC rather than leaving the message and the attachment in your Webmail Inbox.
4. Make sure that your Webmail settings are configured to clean out your Trash folder upon logout. Even though you have deleted messages, they still exist in your Trash folder and they are using a portion of your 1GB storage quota.

Why have test environments?

Have you ever been working on a new project and came across a new menu that you haven’t seen before?  Why not try it out?  After making a few changes here and there you are now ready to head out of the office for the weekend until you get a phone call.  The changes you had made on the server corrupted some files.

Unfortunately this does happen.  Luckily you have back-ups and within minutes everything was up and running on the server.

The moral of this post is, never ever test in a live environment.  Of course this is all assumed that you have a test or dev environment set up.

Test and/or dev environments are ideal for testing, training, documentation and etc.  And don’t forget, always have back-ups!

Give our sales department a call today on our test environments and backups before it’s too late!

Brave the Shave!

 

For the fifth year in a row, Basin Electric is proud to host its annual St. Baldricks fundraising event.  Each year, 160,000 children are diagnosed with cancer worldwide. Cancer is the number one disease killer of children in the U.S. and Canada. Research saves lives.

The event will take place at Bismarck State College’s Armory on March 16^th starting at 1:30pm.  This year’s event is cosponsored by MDU Resource Group, National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC) and Basin Electric.

This particular event started in North Dakota in 2008 with nearly 700 volunteers shaving their heads in honor of those children with cancer.  Since then the Bismarck-Mandan area has raised more than $500,000 for childhood cancer research and fellowships.

Can you brave the shave?  Sign up today!  Go to – http://www.tinyurl.com/NDbravestheshave.

To see highlights for this year’s event, go to – http://www.basinelectric.com/News_Center/Publications/News_Releases/north-dakota-set-to-brave-the-shave.html

Dedicated Hosting in North Dakota? Why not…

Here in North Dakota we strive to take care of our customers.  Our staff is talented industry experts that still believe in the importance of personalized customer service.

We provide the most reliable hosting services possible, along with helpful, technically superior customer service.  Take a moment and check out our current Dedicated Hosting Packages.  Need it customized or  maybe not sure which one would be best for your company?  Give us a call, we would love to help your company out!

Dedicated Hosting Packages:

E¹ Essential

The E5404 is a powerful and affordable quad-core server capable of hosting email, high traffic Websites, and development environments. This package comes with 2GB RAM and unmetered data transfer. This runs with the Intel® Xeon® E5405 Processor.

E² Enhanced

The Quad Core Xeon E5504 is a prime choice for those looking for a sturdy, powerful server. This server is great for handling various applications. This package features 6GB RAM and Dual 146GB (2 max) disks. This runs with the Intel® Xeon® Nehalem-EP^TM E5504 Processor.

E³ Elite

The Quad Core Xeon E5540 is equipped to handle more intensive applications. This package features 12GB RAM and Dual 300GB (2 max) disks. This runs with the Intel® Xeon® Nehalem-EP^TM E5540 Processor.

E⁴ Enterprise

With dual processors, six cores, and 12 threads the X5650 boasts hefty resources to power you’re demanding applications and Websites. Our ‘Enterprise’ package offers RAID Level 1 or 5, and 24GB RAM!  This runs with the Intel® Xeon® Westmere-EP^TM X5650 Processor.

Always included with our hosting services:

• Free Configuration Consultation
• 100% Network Up-time Guarantee
• Safe Midwestern Data Center Location
• Affordable Rates & Customizable Configurations
• Complete Solutions including Firewall, VPN, Backups, Monitoring, Clustering and much more
• No Term Commitments

Why not chose BTInet in North Dakota?  We are confident you will be pleased with our services and commitment to you!

btinet.net or btinet.com?

Well, the short answer is that it’s both……  For years, BTInet has been providing email addresses for its customers “@btinet.net”, and we will still continue to do so.  However, the BTInet staff has also used “@btinet.net” for its email addresses, and we’re in the process of making a slight change to that – we’re going to start using “@btinet.com” for our employee’s email addresses.  Our old @btinet.net email addresses will still work for a while, but please make a note of the change to @btinet.com and update your Address books if necessary.

In addition, here are some important email addresses you can use to contact our office:

support@btinet.com – can be used for any technical questions or to report any issues with your services

sales@btinet.com – can be used to request the set up of new services or for any pricing questions

accounts@btinet.com – can be used for any Billing or account questions

customerservice@btinet.com – can be used for general questions

By the way, either domain name will work to visit us on our website, so feel free to use either www.btinet.net or www.btinet.com to check out our services online.

“You can’t prepare for everything – but you can prepare for anything.”

It has been all over the news about the Cruise ship that capsized off the coast of Italy.  This tragic event serves as an important reminder to all.  We can’t prevent disasters from happenings, but we can prepare ourselves for the unexpected.  We need to be reminded the importance of Business Continuity Plans and realize that data disasters do occur, and the repercussions can be devastating.

Data Backup is one of the most critical components of a complete disaster recovery plan.  Back in 2007 only 3 percent of data losses occur due to natural disasters; 97 percent are due to mechanical failure or human error.  Good news, preparation for both types of disasters is the same!

Five important questions to consider:

1.  What is absolutely critical to running your business day-to-day?

• Emails?
• Accounting Data?
• Customer Records?
• Billing Software
• All of the above?

2.  How long could you operate without that data before your business suffered?

• A few hours?
• A day?
• Several days?

3.  When is your data backup?

• Multiple times a day?
• Every Day?
• Weekly?
• Monthly?

4.  Where and how is your backup data stored?

• On-site?
• Off-site?
• Not sure?

5.  In a natural disaster, the person or team whom is in charge might be dealing with other issues too.

The best thing to do is to not worry about any of these issues and call BTInet today.  We will manage your Disaster Recovery and your Managed Backups for you.  Do you feel that stress lifting off of your shoulders?

Here is some food for thought:  Businesses with a Business Continuity Plan will go on as normal, businesses without a Business Continuity Plan won’t know what to do and more than likely won’t be able to recover their lost data.