microsoft office | Small Business Tech Tips

In what may come as a surprise to some, IBM just announced that it has worked with Microsoft to patch a security exploit found in its OS called WinShock — and the scariest news is that this has been a vulnerability through all Windows operating systems since Windows 95!* This bug has been a part of all of our beloved Microsoft OSes for 19 years!

IBM initially discovered the bug back in May. However, Microsoft chose not to go public until a patch was in place. Microsoft has just released 14 patches as part of its ‘Patch Tuesday’ updates (Tuesday is when Microsoft releases patches for its OSes) to address the WinShock bug. Another two patches are also on the way. To get the latest updates, type ‘Windows update’ in your search bar (if you have anything Vista or later) and install the important patches.

If you would like to read Microsoft’s Security Bulletin on the WinShock bug, you can do so here: https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/ms14-nov

The bug is introduced through Microsoft’s schannel, which is Microsoft’s way of securing the transfer of data. However, WinShock not only affects the OS, it also affects Microsoft Office products and Microsoft servers. If you are hosting a website that sends encrypted traffic, you are going to want to update as soon as possible. Even though there is no proof that this bug has affected anyone, it was still rated 9.3 out of 10 on the CVSS, so all server administrators should consider this just as important and severe as the latest bugs that have been identified (i.e. Heartbleed, Shellshock, etc.)

For more information on how to protect your environment against the WinShock bug, call Everon at 1-888-244-1748.

*The WinShock bug does not affect Windows phones or tablets, as they do not use schannel.

November 5, 2014 Jeff

Tech Tips for Techs: Visio - custom stencils to enhance your drawings

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One of my favorite things to do in IT is create Visio drawings of clients’ networks. Not only does it help them visually understand how their network is connected, it helps our teams here understand all of the connection points for a network for our troubleshooting. Visio is an extremely important tool for any IT Professional. If you haven’t looked into it yet, do yourself a favor, download a 60-day trial of Visio 2013 Professional, and create a network diagram.

Visio comes with several basic stencils for completing your diagrams, such as a brick wall to signify a firewall and a basic tower server for your server needs. However, you have the ability to modify your Visio to include actual drawings of popular brands, such as Dell and HP. Check out the following link:

http://www.visiocafe.com/index.htm

This site creates custom stencils for your Visio drawings. You download a ZIP file, unpack it, and there will be a VSS file inside. That VSS file will go wherever your shapes are located on your computer. (At the moment I am still, unfortunately, using Visio 2007, so my shapes are found under Documents\My Shapes.)

If you input the VSS file in there, and then launch Visio, and browse to File ->Shapes ->My Shapes, you will now see your custom stencils!

Check out the photo below for my custom Dell shapes, which I am currently using:

I can now use actual Dell PowerEdge server stencils for my Visio drawing, which really enhances your drawings and allows your client to better understand the drawing and what they are looking at!

If you are interested in getting a Visio drawing done for your company, become a client of Everon’s today by calling 1-888-244-1748!

April 3, 2014 Tony Cooper

Sharing documents with other users within Office 365′s OneDrive for Business

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Welcome back. As you can tell, there have been many of articles lately surrounding Microsoft Office 365 and its offering. We have been really focused on getting out information regarding this product, as this is something that is taking off like wildfire. Even though it has been around a while, companies are starting to realize the value in a cloud/hosted solution, because of the expenses saved from not having to have a server, and the convenience and security of having everything automatically backed up. So today, we will be discussing another function within the Office 365 product: sharing files and folders with others, within your company.

This article is going to give a brief overview of utilizing 365′s OneDrive for Business application to share data. As this is a 10,000 foot view of this feature, please feel free to contact an Engineer at Everon for more information after reading this article, or respond via the website, Facebook, or our Twitter feed.

1) You will want to create a new folder that you will keep the “shared” files in.

2) Make sure the new folder is “checked” and then click the “…” and select share.

3) Select the user you would like to share with and select their level of permissions.

4) Now, the user will get an email with the link of the folder which they can click, or they can log into their own OneDrive and on the left hand side they will see the selection for “Shared With Me”.

November 13, 2013 Tony Cooper

Is your Office 2013 product opening in Compatibility Mode?

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On several occasions, the question about “compatibility mode” has arisen. When you open up one of the Office suite products, some times it opens in compatibility mode and limits the functionality of what you can do within the product.

Even though “compatibility mode” sounds like something really complex and can be offsetting, do not fret as there is a simple and quick way to convert it back to normal mode.

If you click the “File” menu, you have the option to “Convert”. Once you click the “Convert” button, it will reopen the current document in “Normal” mode.

Cheers!

June 28, 2013 Kim

The Replace Function in Excel

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Occasionally in data sets, you need to replace text in a certain column or row with another string of text. You can use the Replace function to change the text in only the cells needed. The Replace function syntax is =REPLACE(old_text, start_num, num_chars, new_text). In this example, our old text will be “wlee” in the Approver ID column and we will be replacing it with “kthimyan”.

Since we want to replace the whole text string of “wlee”, the start number (start_num) will be 1 - beginning with “w”. There are 7 characters in “kthimyan”. We will finish the function with “kthimyan”. Remember that when entering text in an Excel formula, you will need to surround the text string with quotes. The formula will look like the example below.

Drag the formula down the desired column. All will be updated with the desired text.

If you want to change the ending of the text string, you can modify the formula. In the example below we turn “wlee” into “wlong”. As you will see in the formula, we being the replacement with the 3rd letter, “e”. There are 3 replacement letters - “ong”.