But, over the last couple of years, the IT support side of Aztech has grown and become almost if not more important than the website creation and those invoices, for quick repair jobs are much smaller and so I thought it was about time that I extended my payment options.

After examining the market carefully, I bought a Square terminal to accept the contactless payments like those based on mobile phones like ApplePay as well as contactless cards and chip and pin. This ability to take payments on the fly and generate invoices in real time is a step forward. and whereas Aztech wont be heavily reliant on it.. its good to have in the arsenal. These things have come on leaps and bounds over the last few years, costs have dropped, ease of use has increased and they are far more portable. For anyone selling things either online, or charging for services, or taking a service out and about then these portable payment terminals are pretty much a necessity in this post-cash world we find ourselves in.

If you think your business could benefit from going contactless then drop me a line and I can help get you started and taking payments with some good introductory offers that will save you money.

The post New Contactless Way to Pay. Square. first appeared on Aztech Webservices.

EeeeKK! Who we gonna call?

Well, ourselves obviously.
I mean what sort of IT support company would we be if we couldn’t sort this out.

So.. after one large initial moment of panic ( We are all allowed that! ) then a particularly strong cup of coffee as the recovery plan was formulated. What followed afterwards was then a marathon 32 hrs of disk management, salvaging and data recovery. Then after one very sleepless night Aztech IT managed to salvage all 4 drives and recovered and saved approximately 8TB of company data. Saving every single scrap of past data with no loss.

Its important for us to make clear that none of our services were affected, all LIVE services were uninterrupted and no sensitive data was ever at risk . We suffered no downtime of any website or email service and at no point could any sensitive client data be affected. This wasn’t a hack or breech in any security. This was simply a faulty power supply on a Desktop PC – It Go BOOM.

The data lost and then recovered again were Legacy files held in storage locally one of the Aztech Office PCs. This data contained no sensitive client information and was just the repository for past, present and the workstation for future Aztech work both digital and physical Design. It consisted of rough and proprietary artwork and data relating to a website construction like images/videos/word docs.

Its all good. But it was a bit of a brown trouser moment, I can tell you.

Back up People!!.

So, what can we learn from these last few days. Always remember to backup your important data so that should the worst happens you can move forward with a swift recovery and minimise downtime for your operation. Take your files offsite automatically with Enterprise level cloud backups or make additional physical copies and create extra redundancy in your backup plan by moving them off site in case of fire or theft.

We were covered because all LIVE DATA is backed up thoroughly at the Aztech Offices. We have the original files on a standard PC, then a copy is made and stored at a location away from the site, and then all the really valuable data is uploaded to a cloud server with its own internal redundancy with “state of the art” Enterprise level online security.

But LEGACY DATA like original layered Photoshop documents for a club flyer I made back in 1998 whereas they may never ever be used again arent worth paying for a monthly storage in the cloud but are still an invaluable resource for me as a designer… and for the clients who randomly turn up out of the blue and say.. “Hey you know that poster you designed for us 15 years ago? You still got it?”

So anyway.. a happy end to the saga.. But if you need advice and backup systems putting in place OR should disaster strike and something goes seriously wrong..

Dont Panic – Give Aztech a call.

The post The Importance of Back Ups and Good IT Support in Data Recovery first appeared on Aztech Webservices.

As every year past, Aztech is getting a January rush of interested companies who have returned after the Christmas holiday and and decided that this year is the year it gets sorted and have decided to start their websites.

So, this month we are seeing work starting on 3 new company websites and the Mojo returning and wheels start turning again on another 4 websites that had either stalled or gone on the back burner at the end of 2019.

The post New Year , New You – New Website first appeared on Aztech Webservices.

December is a slow month for all businesses, plans are put in action and battle lines drawn for the year ahead.

But through out all of that Aztech welcomes new clients that include :
Right Reasons Children’s Care of Birmingham &
Balrey Embroidery/Printing of Wolverhampton.

The post December is a slow month… first appeared on Aztech Webservices.

This week I welcomed two new companies to Aztech Webservices.

So holding pages ready, emails configured & Websites coming soon for
Pro-Phone Repairs of Stafford Road and
New Directions Fostering Services of Pattingham.

The post November Update first appeared on Aztech Webservices.

Don`t be this start up company – I’ve seen this pie in the sky thinking too many times.

When starting up, keep your company grounded and focus on what the customer actually wants, Focus on what they are proven to need – rather than what you think you want them to want. Don`t grab at buzzy ideas from other sectors and shoehorning them into your own products sales unnecessarily..

Let your company grow and evolve when you’ve actually got it going by then you’ll know and can advance it safely without too much risk,

The post Don`t be that guy… first appeared on Aztech Webservices.

But your starting your company and you only got a handful of followers and no matter how much you try its just not growing as fast as you see other companies around you. Comparisons are most of the time not good things to do – And this is one of those cases.

See, As much as 100 million people all hanging on your word would be amazing, its the stuff of Ego-fueled dreams and corporate budgets. The reality is far different. I hate to break it to you but not ALL of them are real. Some of them are.. and that number is still a massive number for Katy but the MAJORITY is not.

A recent ( 2 weeks ago ) audit from Twitteraudit.com worked out from detailed analysis of the accounts that followed Katy that over 67% of her followers are fake. They could be many things, brought in bots and dead-end number-only fake followers that only exist on twitter servers. But, and its a really important but, that still leaves 37%.. currently about 37 million real people who follower her tweaks in one capacity or another and thats not a number to be sniffed at – but its not 100 million is it?

The world woke up a while ago (around 2012) when algorithms were developed to rate the realness of your followers and the race changed. Even up till only a year or so ago everyone had been obsessed with the raw NUMBER of followers a person had. The number had POWER

Its best likened to a popularity contest in high school. 100 million certainly makes her the current high school prom queen. But what does this matter if the people aren’t real, what is the point of spending all that money?

The fact that massive bot follower lists were bought and sold bumping up profiles is far from new. Everyone has known about it since twitter first started. The practice of bolstering pop star egos in a bid to be the biggest is still a race that every single one of them wants to reach, its the modern day Top of the Pops.

SO, the base logic goes like this.. The current ranking Queen Katy Perry MUST be the best popstar because she has 100 million followers and some established legend like Madonna currently only has 1.6 million. So Katy therefore must be 100x more important to the industry than Madonna- right?

So lets move it away from followers for a second to numbers that actually count.. Album sales. That is what counts to both of these people and their companies, thats why they all do this – to move the units – its the same reason we are all in business. Katy has sold 11 million albums ( Again – a fantastic achievement in the modern marketplace ) but Madonna has sold over her career – 300 million albums.

(NB: Katy is still in the early part of her career and has time to catch up, but I would say that it is statistically impossible for her to overtake Madonna record sales for many reasons that aren’t really relevant to this article… so lets get back to the point the followers and why its not so important.)

So.. Madonna has 30x more sales overall but 100x less followers on Twitter.

Madonna numbers are way way lower but that is okay her profile rates in as 76% real. 1.1 million REAL people follow her. Madonna and her audience is a little older, a little wiser, her audience is more mature, importantly she isn’t really releasing records any more. Her profile is about her charity work and generally remaining visible and relevant to the media and to her fans. Her profile reflects her and the beliefs of a woman of her age which her fans can relate to.

So, Katy is cheating right?

Hmmm.. its just not that simple. Just because a person has fake twitter followers, it does not necessarily mean that they have actually bought them, and even more they may actually not even be aware that they have any fake followers. Many automated fake profiles will follow some real people, so that they look more genuine. Industry movers like Katy will naturally gather fake accounts and the bigger your Twitter presence is, the more fake followers you will naturally attract over time.

But its not unrealistic to suggest that in the majority of cases (especially including recording artists and their controlling Corporations), if a Twitter profile, like Katy`s , has a significant proportion of fake followers, you can be fairly sure that that person has at some point bought followers from any one of the huge number of companies that peddle fake twitter followers online.

So.. if its working for her, why shouldnt I just follow?

Here 3 good reasons why Fake followers are a really bad idea..

Fake followers are useless for engagement. – if they don’t exist they cant interact with you, they cant buy your product, attend your gig, its just money wasted if you promote to people who literally don’t exist.

No one likes fakers – People will find out about your faked companies popularity and then maybe feel that you have been lying to them, manipulating them and they could lose trust in your brand / product and you may lose them.

You can get banned or deleted – Twitter is very clear since 2012 that buying fake followers isn’t allowed, it undermines trust in the Twitter system and casts doubt on the realness of their system. Its seen as a direct manipulation and unless you have powerful lawyers and spend lots of money with them, they will simply cull your account, deleting your account and making all your hard work on the genuine followers disappear

So.. how can you stop your profile from attracting these fakes?

Its a very simple process. One good way to stop following fake accounts is to look for accounts which have no picture or have not tweeted in more than a couple of months as they are likely to be fake. Also watch out for profiles with a low number of tweets or very low or disproportionate number of followers compared to the people they follow

…And then, simply, just unfollow, just stop following them. 

Set aside an accounting day for your twitter account where you just purge your lists of as many fake accounts as you can or use one of the many automated services online to have a de-clutter knowing full well that although your ego will be slightly bruised from the drop in numbers, that your presence will be stronger and mean more to everyone who counts – REAL People.

If your numbers of followers is very high then that can be a very laborious thing to do so why not try one of these three apps to help you get on top of your account and keep the fakes out.

Twitter Audit – already mentioned. This will give you a true reflection of your own accounts status, you allow it access and its algorithm will go through your followers list and then tell you what percentage of “fake” accounts are following you.

Bot or Not – a free app developed by a university, its results are less reliable but will give you strong indications of which profiles to un-follow, just take the results with a pinch of salt.

Afterwards bask in the glow of your lean and mean, less fatty more healthy twitter follower list and no that although its got smaller, its now much far far more useful to you.

The post Katy Perry hits a twitter record 100 million followers What is she doing that you’re not and why shouldnt you believe the hype? first appeared on Aztech Webservices.

While HDDs rely on moving parts, SSDs (Solid State Disk) rely solely on electronics with no moving parts, making it a lot more reliable and much faster. They function similarly to USB drives.

SSD Disks use non-volatile memory for storing information. Unlike RAM, they won’t lose any of said information once the power is switched off. They store data on microchips, so they have no moving parts which makes them more resistant to shakes and have much less delays when they read/write data.

In terms of functionality, they are no different from regular HDDs, but they offer significantly more speed. While HDD’s speed can be 15-20 milliseconds, SSDs have 0.2 millisecond read/write speeds. This makes it obvious that SSDs will offer a much better functionality.

These benefits also apply to web hosting performance. Speed is a crucial part of modern data-driven websites. Users expect webpages to load in less than three seconds. It’s obvious that the medium that you store a website on, affects the speed at which it is delivered to users.

SSD drives are about 3 times faster than HDDs, so you have an obvious reason to choose them, but they are about 4 times more costly.

The post Hosting With SSD, Love It first appeared on Aztech Webservices.

Let me introduce you all to the world of “Dark Advertising”. This is how one organisation who has a larger financial advantage over another will use their influence to drown out the growing social noise of a perceived threat. This works by literally buying them out of the competition in a precise and targeted manner., making it too expensive to advertise fairly and effectively.

In this example Illustrated by Rob Waugh a Journalist for the Metro newspaper, this is Dark Advertising on a Governmental level.

When you read about how the political parties are effecting the outcome of an specfic local election in a marginal area, this is just one ( completely legal ) way that they achieve it.

http://metro.co.uk/…/tories-used-facebook-dark-ads-to-drow…/

This article has some rare and frank SEO data released by the advertiser who was continuously priced out of there own marketing campaign especially at vital key moments.

But..I hear you all say.. This is only political shenanigans – Why is this relevant to me and my business?

Well.. the government didn’t invent this. Big business did.

And – if your companies growth is a potential threat on a major corporations potential profit margin. You may well find yourself a target and it could cost you dear.

Eitherway.. this is an article that anyone to who pays for advertising online, but especially facebook, needs to read.

The post How Dark Advertising effects you and your business in more subtle ways than you think first appeared on Aztech Webservices.

A Hefty fireproof safe-locking server box that we sold to them as Az*tech E.com back over a decade ago was still in use in the corner of the office. 

The owner explained how about 5 years ago, that safe box saved his entire business after the unit they operated from was robbed by thieves and all the computers were stolen – apart from the server after the box repelled all attempts to move it and even a forced crowbar attack on the lock. With the server safe and because of the data sharing we set up for them on their network all the valuable data was NOT lost it was safe inside that strongbox and the business could continue.

So that put me in mind of two things… 

In these modern days of cyber attacks, you should never forget the physical risk of your data security.

Also.. that box was damn heavy to lift up those stairs, it took two of us, but it was completely worth it.

The post Sometimes its best to think physically first appeared on Aztech Webservices.