Gareth’s Working From Home IT Tips
Our Saskatoon IT Tips are from the Trusted professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions. We promise to have a one-hour response time for all your Saskatoon IT support needs. Honesty and respect are important to us. In our latest IT Expert tip Article, Gareth provides working from home IT tips to help ensure your work software is working smoothly and safely.
Gareth’s Working From Home IT Tips
With the possibility of a second lockdown becoming more of a reality, we may all soon be working from home again if you are not already.
Keeping your valuable business data safe becomes more difficult in this situation, but here are a few things you can do to keep your information and software safe.
Working From Home IT Tips: #1 Strong Passwords
A strong password is all about length. You can add upper and lower case letters, along with numbers and ‘special characters’, but in today’s world what matters is length. A password should be a minimum of 15 characters and can now include spaces.
A good idea is to choose 4 unrelated words, this is easy to remember and gives you the length you need.
For example: #Eggs planeT walking Truck! – 27 characters and easy to remember!!
Working From Home IT Tips: #2 Wi-Fi
3 tips for the price of 1 here. 
Firstly, change the name of your Wi-Fi network, which is known as the SSID. Do not use your name or address, and change it from the default SaskTel/Shaw name. This will help with security as anyone who can see the network will not know what type of Wi-Fi device it is, or be able to easily guess the password as they do not know whose Wi-Fi it is.
Secondly, as mentioned in the fist IT tip above, make the password as long as you can.
Lastly, working from home can be difficult without the added problem of slow Wi-Fi access. Ensure you are using a Wi-Fi device with 5GHz technology, the old 2.4GHz system is now considered very slow, and if you are in a densely populated area 2.4GHz is prone to even slower speeds due to interference.
IT Tips: #3 Use a VPN
Do not connect to business networks without the use of a VPN. This not only protects your data as it travels across the internet, it also protects the data at the office by only allowing secure connections to the work network.
IT Tips: #4 Software Updates
Ensure you install updates for all your software for 2 main reasons.
- Most updates are related to the security of your computer. When coders discover a vulnerability in their software, they release a patch to plug the whole, this keeps you safe.
- A fully patched PC runs more smoothly and faster.
IT Tips: #5 Think Before You Click
We all have 10 hours of work to do in an 8 hour day, but taking just 1 second to look before you click can save a lot of pain.
When an email arrives with a link in it, hover over the link. The address that it is pointing to will appear allowing you to check to ensure it is directing you to the correct place and not a potential virus.
IT Tips: #6 Don’t Use Personal Devices
Only connect to work information and data with devices specific for work use. Often home computers are not protected to the same degree as business PCs. Do not take the risk of infecting the office from your personal PC.
IT Tips: #7 Data Backup
Ensure all data, no matter where it is, is backed up. The best way is to have an automated service which backups and reports to you in an email.
Also, test your backups. There is nothing worse than trying to recover only to find the backups are corrupt.
If all this seems like too much of a headache, reach out to your local IT experts at Burnt Orange Solutions. We can manage all of this for you allowing you to concentrate more on work and less about potential IT problems delaying your deadlines.
Gareth McKee, Owner & Founder
We hope this article gave you some insight. If you want to ensure your business’s IT security, contact the Trusted Saskatoon IT professionals at Burnt Orange Solutions and we can take IT worries off your plate.
Burnt Orange IT Solutions Products & Services:
- Managed Networks
- Backup and Recovery
- Data and Network Security
- Hosted Services
- Telephone Systems
- Secure WiFi Networks
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