Are you tossing out an old computer or bringing it to us for recycling? Sensitive data like logins, passwords, and credit card information lingers on your hard drive. If you don’t erase the entire drive, your sensitive information is at risk. When you bring an old computer or drive to us, we use government recommended standards to clear the drive of all sensitive data, ensuring that your private information is protected.

Myth: “Deleting all of the files on the drive or formatting the drive deletes my sensitive data and protects me.” This is false and potentially dangerous. In both cases, the data is still on the drive. The only things deleted are the locations telling the computer the data is there. This means that with little effort, a skilled person can still access the private data because it is still technically on the drive.

Hard drives can be completely erased, destroying the information permanently. We use DBAN, a government-approved method for wiping physical drives. DBAN is software designed to overwrite the hard drive’s data multiple times. It does so in a specific way that makes the retrieval of your information impossible. We comply with the Department of Defense’s standard to clear the drive a minimum of seven times to ensure removal of protected information.

We are here to help you protect your identity.

Your business has a lot of information to collect, organize, and store. What would happen if client accounts, employee information, and other important documents were lost due to hardware failure, power failure, or an accident? Have a plan for backing up your data to keep you from this horrible scenario.

There are two places to store your business information: on-site and off-site. On-site storage implements devices such as Network Attached Storage to update and maintain a copy of your data for you. In the case of lost information, this equipment is on-site and has everything backed up. Off-site storage essentially means your data is backed up online, also called Cloud Storage. Often done by a third party, your data is maintained and protected on a server that can easily be accessed via the web.

Which is better? We recommend a two-tier approach to protecting your investment. By using both on-site and off-site data storage, you can relax, knowing that if any issue arises that harms your vital information, you are protected. With these tools, you can prevent disaster and have your business running smoothly again with very little downtime.

If you were seeking a job, and the company you wanted to hire you would only do so if you turned your Facebook login and password over to them, would you do it? Does an employer have the right to ask you for that sort of private information? It is a password for a reason. It is to protect you from other people accessing information that you want to keep private. Companies are engaging in this behavior to “screen” employees and people going through the hiring process. This is a quickly escalating controversy.

Facebook prohibits the sharing of your password with any other party.  Many employers skirt around this by having an employee, or potential employee, log into their Facebook account. Someone from the company will peruse the site “over the shoulder” of the person navigating their Facebook page.

It is illegal to open people’s mail, spy into their homes, or tap their phone lines. Why would forcing someone to give up their password for the sake of being hired, and going through their protected information be any different? Is this an act of discrimination? Who are they to spy into your private life?

Facebook took a stance on this issue this week and offered two warnings. The first warning was that Facebook will consider suing businesses who engage in this tactic. The second warning is one that all employers should consider as well. The continuation of this behavior will open up a wave of litigation.

Certainly any company is interested in knowing an employee’s background information. However, the issue of coercing people’s passwords from them is going to become more prevalent and can only lead to legal action. Despite the potential information that could be gained, is this worth your business getting negative publicity or crushed under the fees and headaches of a lawsuit?

In short, this is not a good idea for your business.

Facebook’s user agreement and statement of terms:

https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

A section of Facebook’s official statement about forcing people to give up their passwords:

As a user, you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job.  And as the friend of a user, you shouldn’t have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don’t know and didn’t intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job.  That’s why we’ve made it a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to share or solicit a Facebook password.

In recent months, we’ve seen a distressing increase in reports of employers or others seeking to gain inappropriate access to people’s Facebook profiles or private information. This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends. It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.

Facebook takes your privacy seriously.  We’ll take action to protect the privacy and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down applications that abuse their privileges.

While we will continue to do our part, it is important that everyone on Facebook understands they have a right to keep their password to themselves, and we will do our best to protect that right.

– Erin Egan, Chief Privacy Officer, Policy

https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-and-privacy/protecting-your-passwords-and-your-privacy/326598317390057

Remembering passwords for email, logins, and accounts is a hassle. Who wants to bother with actually changing them if remembering is hard enough?  People who want to steal your sensitive data want you to think this way. Cybercriminals use sophisticated tools to rapidly decipher passwords. Keeping the same password for the sake of convenience is asking for trouble as time goes by. 

A good way to protect yourself or your business is to change passwords on devices and accounts every three to six months. And if an account does get hacked, change your password immediately.

Write passwords down on a piece of paper and keep the paper in a safe place. Don’t share passwords and accounts with friends. Sharing accounts is often against user agreements anyway. Don’t use the same passwords across accounts. This does make things easier to remember for you, but also makes the thief’s job of accessing your data much easier too.

If possible use a minimum of eight characters and use a variety.  Avoid common characters and ones grouped on keyboard such as “qwerty” or sequences of characters like “1234567, abcdefg, or 3333333.” Never use personal information such as your name, birthday, drivers license number, or passport number. Avoid dictionary words in any language. Refrain from backward spellings, abbreviations, and common misspellings of words.

Here is a how-to from Microsoft about making strong passwords:

Windows XP is reliable and a staple of your business. It just works. Why change? Well, XP is no longer the “computing standard.” A lot has changed since XP’s debut in 2001.The business world is moving forward from XP and embracing newer, broader, and faster technologies such as Windows 7 and 8. Microsoft is also moving past XP and will stop supporting it in 2014. Most of your software providers are already on board because they want to offer the latest features and can’t absorb the cost of testing and development for three or more operating systems.

The newer operating systems such as Windows 7 and (in-testing) Windows 8 are much faster. They make better use of multi-core processors and RAM. XP was designed at a time when single core processors and 64 MB of RAM were standard. Windows 7 offers easier and more reliable wireless networking. Devices such as printers are easily shared across your network. As new gadgets emerge, they interface easily with Windows 7 and 8. But here’s one you’ll love—can’t remember where a file is? Windows 7 and 8 offer an all-encompassing, smarter, simple way to search your computer. You can easily locate any file or program using the convenient, comprehensive search features of Windows 7 and 8.

What does all of this jargon mean and how does it affect you? Well, the bottom line is Windows 7 saves you, and your employees, time; which saves money. Skipping Windows Vista was okay, but your competitors are upgrading their computers. In the marketplace, you want to keep costs low and productivity high to stay competitive. It may be time to rethink your old software and hardware and take the plunge into time-saving, updated products.

With technology constantly offering the latest, greatest gadgets, it’s easy to end up with old or outdated computers and devices in our closets. Might as well throw that old or non-working PC in the trash because no one would ever use it, right? Wrong. Computers under five years old and other working electronics can be re-used, and older computers and broken electronics can be recycled. This has a positive impact on our environment and helps create jobs.

Did you know that computer hardware has several valuable materials inside? Many people know that plastics, metals, and glass can be recycled. Computers and devices can be made of all of these. Computers are made of materials such as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Other metals, including copper, tin, steel, nickel, and lead can be extracted from circuit boards and used again. Many of these materials are far more valuable when taken from the devices than when in raw form. Circuit boards, for example, have 200 times the concentration of valuable metals than ore and there’s a significantly less energy and water used in recycling rather than mining.

Electronics also have harmful materials inside that are detrimental to the environment. They can contain metals such as mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and lead. Putting these devices into our landfills pollutes our earth and takes up space. The United Nations Environment Program reported:

“Some 20 to 50 million metric tonnes of e‐waste are generated
worldwide every year, comprising more than 5% of all municipal solid
waste. When the millions of computers purchased around the world
every year (183 million in 2004) become obsolete they leave behind
lead, cadmium, mercury and other hazardous wastes. In the US alone,
some 14 to 20 million PCs are thrown out every year. “

As stewards of our environment, the PC Doctors proudly accepts old computers and devices. Our services  help keep waste and harmful materials out of our landfills, help keep the cost of materials from rising, and help connect people in need with more affordable devices.

We are proud to support our local community and yesterday our local community supported us at our ribbon cutting ceremony. We offer our thanks to the many people who attended the event in support of the PC Doctors. Mayor Greg Goodnight, the Greater Kokomo Economic Development Alliance, the Kokomo Tribune, Indiana University Kokomo were there to celebrate with us. Rozzi’s Catering Continental Ballroom provided us with wonderful food and refreshments to make this an occasion to remember. Thank you everyone for the hometown welcome!
Here are some picture and videos from this great event:

Our Tout page - http://www.tout.com/u/pcdocs

Some pictures - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150611187075920.386075.340398115919&type=3

When you have computer problems in your home or business, wouldn’t it be nice to have an honest local business whose focus is on integrity, their local community, and prompt response times? These qualities are inherent to the PC Doctors. When your computer is in our care, it will be diagnosed correctly, restored to good working condition, and returned to you in two to three days (for residential). Our competitors regularly keep their customer’s computers for two weeks or more. This is because they ship your computer to a third party to be worked on. We do all of our work in house. Your computer will be examined and repaired by us, not someone you don’t know and didn’t hire. This ensures that we fix your issue correctly—the first time—and have you back up and running as soon as possible. We understand how inconvenient malfunctioning or slow computers are.

Having a warranty issue with a computer you purchased? Having trouble figuring out how to get in touch with the computer manufacturer? We can help with that too. We can help guide you through the warranty process to get your issue resolved with the company you purchased your PC from.

We are also sensitive to how we treat our local environment. We offer recycling services for electronics. Old computer hardware has harmful chemicals that can pollute landfills and water. Not only can hardware be safely disposed of, much of it can be recycled and used in newer hardware.

Here is a list of some of our services that we proudly offer to our community. http://www.pcdocsonline.com/services/

On Monday January 30^th The PC Doctors LLC will usher in 2012 with their new office in Kokomo. The PC Doctors LLC is proud to be the newest tenant of Inventrek Technology Park, the high-tech business incubator located in Kokomo Indiana. Managed by the Greater Kokomo Economic Development Alliance, Inventrek Technology Park gives The PC Doctors LLC a great foundation to offer first class IT Solutions to its clients.

The PC Doctors LLC is a Kokomo based IT Solutions Provider that prides itself on providing quality services with an emphasis on quick turnaround times. The PC Doctors LLC is focused on providing quality IT Solutions to Central Indiana. The PC Doctors LLC serves Small and Medium size businesses, residential clients, the web development community, and Social Media environments.

Many Central Indiana businesses and residential clients already trust The PC Doctors LLC to be their Strategic IT Partner.  In this day of age it’s important to have an IT Partner that you can trust to protect your IT investments and ensure your data is secure. The PC Doctors LLC looks to partner with your business or residential clients to manage your critical IT Infrastructure, to ensure high availability and security. The PC Doctors LLC has a wide range of World Class vendors and educated Consultants to ensure that all its clients receive the best service and quality.

To ensure that the environment is taken care of The PC Doctors LLC tries to do its part. The PC Doctors LLC offers free recycling for IT equipment that they service. Listed below are items that The PC Doctors LLC is proud to accept to recycle.

• Computers
• Laptops
• Monitors
• Printers
• Network Switches, routers and modems
• Servers

The PC Doctors LLC believes that by offering free recycling initiatives to its clients that Kokomo Indiana can reduce the dangerous practice of letting electronics release toxic chemicals into landfills. The PC Doctors LLC is committed to educating the community on the dangers and legal ramifications of dumping electronics into landfills.

To find out more about The PC Doctors LLC review the following areas of contact:

Website:             www.pcdocsonline.com

Phone:                 765-507-9583

Office:                  700 East Firmin, Suite 105 Kokomo, IN 46902

Email:                   support@pcdocsonline.com

Facebook:           www.facebook.com/pcdocsonline

Twitter:                www.twitter.com/pcdocsonline

The PC Doctors is a family owned IT Consulting company that cares deeply about our community. We try out best to live out our core mission statement of developing quality IT solutions for our neighbors and friends that they can be proud of, and use to power their businesses and personal lives.

For The PC Doctors, our job isn’t about completing a few hours here and there for some quick money. The PC Doctors is committed to ensuring that are customers are taken care of every step of the way down the road from IT headaches to IT bliss. Our Solutions Engineers truly enjoy being tasked with difficult situations and finding efficient, budget conscious solutions that help businesses and individuals accomplish tasks with their technology that they thought couldn’t be done, or would cost twice as much.

If you’d like to learn more about The PC Doctors and what we can do for you or your business then proceed to our Contact Form.

We’d love to have a chance to earn your business, especially if you’re in the Kokomo Indiana area. We strongly believe that keeping business local will benefit all local businesses, employees, and residents.

Yours truly,

The PC Doctors Team