We've seen a recent increase from our existing clients looking to upgrade from XP to another operating system such as Windows 7 and/or Windows 8 on account of the Heart Bleed and Internet Explorer remote code execution exploit that have been widely publicized.  Besides not having specific support for XP any longer, these security flaws are great reason to upgrade off of XP. 

For some, moving to Windows 8 is scary. Yes, the dramatic changes of Windows 8 does scare some of our more senior users. However, upgrading to a new operating system doesn't have to be scary with the right support. If that is too much, Windows 7 is still available from technology companies such as ours, but only for a limited time.

We've seen a recent increase from our existing clients looking to upgrade from XP to another operating system such as Windows 7 and/or Windows 8.  Besides not having specific support for XP any longer, this security flaw news article in Time Magazine by Charlie Campbell @charliecamp6ell is another great reason to upgrade off of XP. 

Firestone Technical Resources can assist with your upgrades and migrations, whether it's one PC or many. Call us to schedule an appointment today.   

When setting up Intuit QuickBooks POS v12 in a multi-user environment, you will likely want to have each user sign into the POS system to track their sales transactions. By default the log in requirement is disabled so when you setup a new employee you will not have the option to assign a password.

To setup employee accounts with passwords follow these steps.

We had a situation where we wanted to setup an Intuit QuickBooks POS system in a locked down configuration so that it was more like a kiosk for the register attendants. There are several ways to go about this but most will lock down every user, but in our case we only wanted to affect the POS users to prevent unnecessary changes to the system.

The process we came up with uses a combination of parental rights, registry hacks, and user menu modifications. You will also need to make sure you create a special local user account that you will assign these changes to. Before attempting this process, make sure you have a backup of your system in the event something doesn't work as expected.

The reading pane in Microsoft Outlook is a took that allows the user to quickly view the contents of an email message. The down side to this is that it causes an open message process that can cause some e-mail borne viruses to activate as soon as they enter the Inbox. For security purposes we recommend that end users review the subject and who the message is from before opening the message to ensure they are not allowing something malicious to run on their computer. Closing the reading pane helps to ensure that the end user takes the time to check the message details first before opening it.

How to Turn Off Reading Pane