Isservice.ca

ISSERVICE Technology is pleased to announce our partnership with Netgate. Netgate provides quality security products at reasonable pricing, with NO subscription required. As ISSERVICE Technology was founded on providing the best IT Service VALUE to our customers, partnering with Netgate was a logical fit. Our technicians are trained to support these products, and we are the only authorized partner in the region!. This does not compromise our promise to provide the best tech...nology and value for our customers, as we are not tied to any quotas or sales requirements. We can and will still provide and support other products, but as Netgate's value is hard to beat we felt that becoming a partner with them was in the best interest of not only ISSERVICE and Netgate, but also that of our customers. Contact us if you'd like some more information, or if you were thinking about the security of your business, or if you're just tired of paying annual for security appliance licensing! https://isservice.ca/wp/our-partners/ www.netgate.com

Prepping another customer roll out!

We live in a highly technological world, which can be very convenient, even in our homes. Home automation and internet/app controlled thermostats, cameras and even appliances are all very popular. What do these all have in common? The ability to be compromised/hacked.... ALWAYS make sure your passwords are strong and secure, and enable Two Factor Authentication (2FA) wherever possible. This kind of thing is happening more and more. Stay (digitally) safe, friends! https://www.welivesecurity.com//50000-home-cameras-report/

Please note that if you are a Microsoft o365 Customer, some services may not be currently available due to a service disruption on Microsoft's end. Please check this site regularly for updates. https://status.office365.com/

Happy to announce we've finally gone live with our long in development website redesign! Have a look and let us know what you think! We're still tweaking it but it's come a long way. www.isservice.ca

In compliance with the recently passed bylaw by the Region of Niagara, effective Friday July 31st we will be requiring anyone entering our facility to call our line at 289-479-1010 when at the door. A team member will come and let you in, providing you are wearing a face mask as per the bylaw. We look forward to continuing to service your technology needs! Thank you for your co-operation! More information on the bylaw can be found here: https://www.niagararegion.ca/health/covid-19/mask-bylaw.aspx

Microsoft pushed an update for Outlook that is causing Outlook to crash for some users. You can see more details here https://www.theverge.com//microsoft-outlook-crash-launch-i ... Apparently Microsoft has identified the issue and is developing a patch to be released ASAP See the latest bulletin on this issue below: Users experiencing Outlook connection issues and crashes EX218604, Exchange Online, Last updated: July 15, 2020 2:22 PM Title: Users experiencing Outlook connection issues and crashesUser Impact: Users may experience crashes or may be unable to access Exchange Online via Outlook.More info: Our analysis indicates that Outlook on the web and mobile clients are unaffected. Users may be able to leverage those protocols as an alternative means to access email and service features while we remediate this problem.Current status: Our initial review of the available data indicates that recently deployed updates are the likely source of the problem. We're performing an analysis of all recent service updates to isolate the underlying cause of the problem and to determine the most expedient means to restore service.Scope of impact: This issue may potentially affect any of your users attempting to use Outlook.

Just a reminder that we have put together a computer "drop off and repair" procedure going forward! If you have a computer that needs repair, please give us a call at 289-479-1010 or send an email to [email protected]. We will arrange a time for you to drop off the computer at our door, and we will repair it for you. Note that computers dropped off will be sanitized before we repair them, and before you pick them back up. It is our goal to keep your business running from a technology perspective during these difficult times. If there is any other way we can help you out, please don't hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. --

It is great that we have a technology such as Zoom to use throughout this situation, but let's not lose sight of security in a trade off with convenience. Just be aware that hackers/scammers have always and will always target the things people are using en mass. Right now it's zoom. Please review the below articles and stay safe. https://arstechnica.com//unpatched-zoom-bug-lets-attacker/ ... https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/01/zoom-doom/

What are some of the struggles you are having while adapting to this new way of conducting business? Let us work with you to find technology solutions to help your business adapt to the "new normal"

In light of the state of emergency declared by the Premier of Ontario and the reccomendation by the federal government to work at home whenever possible, I'd like to let you know that we are here to help with getting you or your employees set up with the ability to work from home. How that will be set up may be different for every organization, but please contact us if you have any questions or thoughts to that effect. Doing what we can to ensure some level of business contin...uance throughout this situation for our customers is very important to us here at ISSERVICE Technology. Additionally, as we have suspended on-site visits due to concern for the health of our and your employees, we have put together a computer "drop off and repair" procedure going forward. If you have a computer that needs repair, please give us a call at 289-479-1010 or send an email to [email protected]. We will arrange a time for you to drop off the computer at our door, and we will repair it for you. Note that computers dropped off will be sanitized before we repair them, and before you pick them back up. It is our goal to keep your business running from a technology perspective during these difficult times. If there is any other way we can help you out, please don't hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. -- Edward Dam President ISSERVICE Technology Ltd.

ISSERVICE Technology is committed to the health and wellbeing of our employees and our customers. In light of the current COVID19 situation globally and taking into account healthcare professional advice as well as that of the Canadian government, ISSERVICE will be suspending any non-emergency on-site visits to our customers for the duration of the virus situation. This is effective immediately. Any currently in-process projects will have their current phase on-site requireme...nts completed within the next 3 days. ISSERVICE will remain open as normal, and we will be happy to provide remote assistance to any and all customers during this time. Please continue to contact us via 289-479-1010 or email your service requests to [email protected]. If you prefer to open a ticket, please send the request to [email protected]. We hope you understand that these actions are in the best interest of our customers and our employees, and we look forward to being able to resume regular on-site service activities as soon as it is feasible to do so. We will be monitoring the situation very closely, and as soon as we are able to return to regular service activities we will send a follow up email to that regard. Please let us know if you have any questions regarding any of this!

Stay secure folks! https://www.priv.gc.ca//news-and-announce/2019/an_191008/

Happy new year! Tomorrow is the day that we've been posting/emailing about for 18 months now - it's the day that Microsoft is killing off the Windows 7 desktop operating system, and the Windows 2008 and 2008R2 (this includes Small Business server 2008 and 2011) server operating sytems. Still on these systems? See below for details on what that means, and how we can help! On January 14, 2020 the windows 7 desktop/laptop operating system and the Windows 2008 server operating sy...stem will no longer be supported by Microsoft. What does "no longer supported" mean? If you are a windows user, you have probably noticed that your computer(s) regularly get Windows Updates. The majority of these updates are security related (patching holes and bugs that hackers may try to exploit). As of Jan 14, 2020 - Microsoft will no longer be providing these updates for Windows 7 and Windows 2008. What does this mean for you? This means that any further problems/security risks found with these operating systems will not be fixed. As such, software programs will likely no longer be supporting those platforms as new versions come out (Quickbooks, Autocad, SAGE are a few examples) What do we need to do? We need to move your systems onto supported operating systems prior to this date. On the desktop/laptop side, most computers that have been sold in the last 2 to 3 years will include a license we can use for Windows 10 (so you do not have to repurchase Windows). In some cases a RAM upgrade in the machine would be recommended to run Windows 10 smoothly, but that will vary from machine to machine. We can advise if this is the case for you. On the server side, this is a much more complicated situation. Please contact us to discuss your specific infrastructure so we can develop a plan to move you to a supported platform prior to Jan 14, 2020. I know 2020 seems a long way away, and that it may seem premature to be sending this email. I also know that a large number of clients are still predominantly using Windows 7 on the desktop and Windows 2008 on the server side, which means there are a lot of computers and servers that need to be updated prior to that date. Please contact us to discuss your individual situations so we can put a plan in place to transition you to supported platforms with as little downtime and cost as possible.

ISSERVICE Technology is happy to announce the addition of Mhairi Malone to our support team. Mhairi's experience in the systems support role will help us achieve the continued customer service quality and response that our customers have come to depend on. Welcome Mhairi!