VoIP Explained (Briefly) 

What is VoIP? VoIP is a type of phone system in which phone calls are made and received over a high-speed Internet connection. 

VoIP phone systems are typically less expensive than their traditional counterparts because cost isn’t as closely tied to use. How can this be? When you speak into a VoIP-enabled phone (or mic attached to your computer), your voice is digitized, packaged up and delivered over the Internet, which means you get to bypass the phone companies and their fondness for collecting tolls as a your voice travels to its destination.

The price you pay for monthly VoIP service usually stays the same regardless of how much time you spend on the phone and how much distance is between you and the person on the other end. In many cases, your bill is simply for the Internet connection.

With VoIP, you can access your phone system anywhere there’s an Internet connection—whether it’s across the Atlantic or at your local coffee shop. Got a mobile workforce? VoIP can be used over wireless connections, so your employees can stay in touch and productive wherever there’s a signal.

Search Engine Optimization: How to Feed Your Web Site to the Spiders 

SEO is the practice of optimizing your web site so it’ll be found by search engines. If your site is found by search engines, there’s a good chance it’ll be found by your customers. 

Notice we describe SEO as a practice—not a process, method or technique. This is because SEO is not a one-time activity. It requires a long-term commitment and should be part of your weekly or daily web site development work. Why? Because search engine technology is constantly changing, so the tactics you use today may not work as well tomorrow. Plus, search engine spiders return to your site looking for new information, giving you many opportunities to increase your ranking. Finally, you should update or develop new strategies to take advantage of new and emerging web forums and social media sites. Simply put, the Internet is evolving, which means your SEO practices should be too. 

Design your web site with SEO in mind.

Designing a web site without considering SEO is like building a house that no one will live in. Neither makes sense. When it comes to designing your site, there are a few things you can do to make it more spider-friendly without compromising the overall look or its functionality.

 Keep Flash-based images to a minimum.

Flash software (distributed by Adobe Systems) lets you add animation and interactivity to your web site. While Flash-based images and embedded text look great, search engine spiders can’t crawl them—which means they won’t be read and indexed. So, any important information you include as part of your Flash-based image is blind to the spiders. Instead, use static images with keyword-rich captions and alt text. Not only will spiders will find them, but you’ll also have created one more area to use keywords.

 Use page titles as actual links.

Page links—specifically their titles—are another important design factor that, when done correctly, can improve SEO. In practical terms, page links connect one page of your site with another. In SEO terms, page links are readable text that’s crawled by spiders.

 However, many designers still use ‘click here’ or ‘learn more’ as the actual clickable link. As a result, spiders read ‘click here’ or ‘learn more’ and don’t index anything. This is a missed opportunity. Instead, use the title of the page, such as ‘Mountain bikes’ as your clickable link. Your visitors will still understand to click on the title to go to the next page, and spiders have even more of your keywords to take back to the search engine index.

 Watch your keyword density.

This is an area where the rules are constantly changing. Keywords are unique descriptors of your products, services or company, and they’re what spiders look for to properly index and categorize your web site. The challenge is creating natural-sounding copy with just the right balance of keywords. Overstuff your copy and the spiders will consider it spamming and drop the site from its index. Include too few keywords and you may get a low ranking. So what to do?

 Each of the three largest search engines—Google, Yahoo and MSN—actually have guidelines. As of this writing the restrictions are:

 Google: No more than two percent of a web page’s total words should be targeted keywords.

 Yahoo and MSN: As high as five percent of a web page’s total words can be targeted keywords.

 Given the lower limits for Google and the higher levels permissible for Yahoo and MSN, the best solution is to maximize the keyword levels for Google, without writing copy that doesn’t read naturally.

 Change or update your content frequently.

Once a search engine spider has crawled and indexed your site, it comes back on a regular basis to see if anything has changed. This is a good thing because, if you’ve added more content, it can positively enhance your ranking. It also makes the need to change or update your content an SEO imperative.

 An easy way to freshen up your content is with blogs. Blogs serve double-duty. They’re a great way to share what you’re thinking with your audience. Plus, they give spiders fresh text to index. Try to blog at least three times a week. Blogs that include reader comment forms and are written by the CEO or president of your company are a great way to communicate and build credibility as they’re often perceived as the true voice of the company.

 Get found

These are just a few ideas to help you create a spider-friendly web site that can be found more easily by your customers. Remember that search engine optimization is an ongoing practice and, to achieve the best results, needs to be a regular part of your web site development efforts.

Think Security Is a Problem Only for Big Companies? Think Again. 

IT security is sometimes depicted as a problem for the largest companies, whose data protection lapses expose customer information and result in front-page coverage. 

Small and mid-sized businesses, of course, stand equally susceptible to malware and network intruder attacks. In some respects, those businesses confront a greater challenge. While large businesses and government agencies employ chief information security officers and IT security staffs, smaller firms typically do not. This places the small business owner in a DIY situation. 

Security vulnerabilities are many and varied, but the SANS Institute, an organization that focuses on IT training and certification, cites two particularly pressing problems: unpatched software running on PCs and vulnerable web-based applications. 

As for the former, email attacks, dubbed “spear phishing,” specifically target vulnerabilities in frequently used products, such as Adobe PDF Reader, QuickTime and Microsoft Office, according to SANS.

 ”This is currently the primary initial infection vector used to compromise computers that have Internet access,” SANS summarized in a September report. [Link: http://www.sans.org/top-cyber-security-risks/]

 The second factor, at-risk web applications, account for a sizable chunk of known security gaps. Assaults focused on web applications represent more than 60 percent of the total attack attempts observed on the internet, according to SANs.

 Getting a Grip

Making sure current security patches are installed on applications and shoring up web application defense are just two chores SMBs face. They need to consider internal lapses — such as employees divulging intellectual property via e-mail — as well as external threats. In addition, many firms must meet regulatory compliance directives. A retailer handling credit card data, for example, must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

 Amid those security facets, SMBs may have trouble knowing where to begin. A vulnerability assessment, also referred to as a risk analysis, comes in handy here. Such an assessment aims to define the scope of an organization’s security issues, thereby identifying likely areas for investment in countermeasures.

 The key steps in a vulnerability assessment include taking stock of a company’s IT assets — servers, applications, networks, client-side devices among other gear. With this census in hand, an SMB can move on to prioritize assets according to their value to the business. The next phase is to zero in on vulnerabilities, starting with the more important assets. This is typically done with the help of vulnerability scanner.

 Getting Started

Small businesses seeking to start down the vulnerability assessment track can turn to a few self-help resources. For example, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) offers its eScan Security Tool, which was designed for small businesses. [Link: https://www.mepcenters.nist.gov/escan/]

 The tool prompts users through a series of questions that touch upon such topics as computer virus protection, back-up policies, and the physical security of computer systems. At the end of the questioning, the tool generates a report with recommendations for improving IT security.

 NIST also offers a guide to small business information security, which includes a section on identifying and prioritizing information. [Link: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/ir-7621/draft-nistir-7621.pdf]

 SMBs may also opt to hire a security consultant to help conduct the assessment. The task of automated vulnerability scanning, for instance, may call for an expert who can interpret the results and distinguish between “false positives” and legitimate concerns.

 An organization must take care in hiring an outsider. The consultant, who will, obviously, learn all about your weaknesses, must be of the highest integrity.