kinetik IT blog spot

In any sport, being called out as Most Valuable Player, or MVP is a big deal. Being awarded the title by a group of one’s peers holds special significance, because colleagues understand the dedication and challenges an individual faces in becoming skilled in a particular line of work. While typically used in sports, the term MVP has come to be used in completely unrelated fields of endeavor such as music and business – as well as the technical community.

According to Microsoft, the MVP award is given to "exceptional, independent community leaders who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Microsoft products with others.” The awarded are those who "actively share their ... technical expertise with the different technology communities related directly or indirectly to Microsoft". An MVP is awarded for contributions over the previous year. One such person can be found in the offices of Kinetik I.T.: Tom van Stiphout, Microsoft Access MVP.

Tom is the Software Development Manager of Kinetik I.T. Having earned a degree from Amsterdam University, he moved to the United States in 1991. After a few years with C++ and Windows SDK programming, he gradually shifted his focus on database programming. He worked with Microsoft Access from version 1.0, and Microsoft SQL Server from version 4.5, when both products were first released.

In 1997, Kinetik I.T. became one of the 27 Regional Directors in the United States, a title it held for three consecutive years. In this capacity Tom attended several conferences in Redmond and was one of the presenters at the annual Developer Days conference in Phoenix. During the last several years Tom has added .NET programming to his repertoire and he is particularly interested in hybrid applications that combine the best of what various platforms have to offer. Tom has been a frequent contributor to the Access newsgroups for many years, and was recently awarded the title of Access MVP.

To learn more about services and products – including how Microsoft Access can help your business – visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Launching a new e-commerce website can be a bit daunting. There’s so much that can go into the planning and execution, and getting it wrong at launch could spell disaster for the entire enterprise. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to get it right, but the key lies in proper planning. Here are the three things you have to consider during those planning stages of your site.

1. Think About the Boring Stuff: Sure, designing the storefront and how customers will interact with it is easily the best part of building an e-commerce store, but there’s so much more to it than that. You have to consider lots of other factors, particularly those that aren’t quite as much fun. There are big financial concerns behind an e-commerce site as well as security and legal matters that must be considered. Simple stuff like ensuring your merchant accounts are updated and ready to handle electronic transactions as well as more complex factors like PCI compliance and sales tax all have to factor into the planning phase at some point.

2. The Shopping Cart Matters: There are lots of free shopping carts online these days, but they’re very basic. You’re only going to get an “Add to Cart” function and a total. You have to be able to have the functions customers are looking for like shipping cost estimates, product recommendations, and more, so look at your options carefully. Customers expect more thanks to big retailers like Amazon and Target, and if you can’t offer it, they’ll find someone who can.

3. Think About Structure: Your design team will likely call this Information Architecture, and the more products you offer, the bigger concern this has to be. You need a good way for customers to find what they’re looking for, so feel free to browse competitor sites to see how they do it.

      E-commerce site planning can get a little complex, but we can help. The IT consulting firm Phoenix trusts most, we’re here to help every step of the way. To learn more, and to stay up to date contact us at www.kinetik-it.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

When a major national retailer is the victim of cyber-attack, it’s headline news.  Late in 2013, Minneapolis-based Target Corporation and Neiman Marcus succumbed to cyber thieves.  It’s now estimated that between November 27 and December 15, 2013 – prime holiday shopping season – the payment card data of 40 million shoppers who bought merchandise in-store at U.S. stores, as well as the personal information of another 70 million customers, was compromised. 

According to available data, the Target mishap is one of the country’s largest recorded data security breaches. Considering the scope of this crime, it’s easy to assume a heist the planning and implementation of which would rival those of a modern-day thriller. To the contrary, the security breach is believed to have been the result of that most innocuous of daily trifles: phishing emails.

According to recent research, while the amount of phishing is decreasing, the methods employed are more targeted, with cyber criminals becoming more skillful. And harmless as it may seem when it appears in the inbox, one of the most effective subject lines, as determined by cyber-security experts at Websense of San Diego, is an invitation to connect on LinkedIn. And if the first and second emails don’t draw in the prospect, data indicates that the third email will finally get them to click a link or open an attachment – though these may not always prove malicious.  Phishing emails proved to be Target’s downfall, when an employee of third-party contractor Fazio Mechanical Services Inc. of Sharpsburg, PA clicked through from a “malware-laced e-mail phishing attack.” Unfortunately, the company’s detection software simply wasn’t capable of protecting the company’s network from the threat.

This kind of incident leaves a business owner to ask, "What can I do to make my company data more secure?"  The best place to start is with awareness.

Security is not a one‑size‑fits‑all approach, because each business is unique, with different network and data challenges. Security measures also depend on the size of the company, the amount of business, on what data is at risk.  

Employees can also be a threat to cyber‑securing the business. The data breaches can occur by simple human error – as with the Target breach, and more recently with Kickstarter, the popular online crowd-sourcing website. This type of error can be related to many factors, among them poor decision‑making, or the consequences of someone else's decision‑making, and not understanding security policies and procedures.

Understanding existing security policies and protocols is imperative, and assembling a security matrix to addresses internal organization risk is a great place to start.  Begin by assessing and assigning appropriate levels of access and security on email servers, employees' tablets or mobile phones. 

When cyber attacks are in the news, it’s important to maintain perspective. Small-to-medium-sized businesses will have less to worry about than a major like Target, or a site with the online reach of Kickstarter.  While keeping data safe should be of concern to every business, the level of security should be appropriate to the size and scope of the individual entity and specific data or intellectual property to safeguard. 

To learn more about services and products, and to stay up to date with Kinetik I.T., visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

With cloud technology becoming an increasingly viable choice for business, questions still remain as to whether it’s the right choice for your business. Kinetik IT’s President, Josette van Stiphout, weighs in on questions and considerations when contemplating sending your business into the cloud.

• Company Size: Usually, cloud technology is the most appropriate for small to midsize businesses that do not have the talent and funding to implement in-house solutions. It also depends on the cloud application’s capacity and functionality.
• Physical Location: Does it make sense for your company if all employees are office-based rather than working from a remote office?
• Security: "Do I want to have everything in the cloud including all my company data?"  The most important questions that people need to ask are really pertaining to data security.
• Space and Software Rental: A disadvantage for cloud computing is that you basically rent – it’s a lifetime rental situation. You don't own anything, and you will always pay a fee. This may be appropriate for some situations but not all.

The cloud has been available in some of fashion for 20 years or more, where it was called ASP (Application Service Providers) or SaaS (Software as a Service). Now in general terms, it's called cloud technologies. But keep in mind there are different categories of cloud computing: software, infrastructure, storage and platform hosting.

In addition to general-use questions, Josette offers considerations for the actual cloud provider. Here are some general suggestions:

• Choose a brand name cloud provider – e.g. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, NetSuite etc.
• Find out the physical location of the service provider’s data center, where the application and files are stored.  Is this data center owned by the cloud provider or is it outsourced?
• Understand what kind of security controls and processes the provider has in place. Who will  be administering your systems, can they see your data, and how do they avoid your data potentially being copied? Can other organizations who are using the same service potentially copy your data?
• Learn about their track record for up‑time.  Planned downtime is a given – for them to perform scheduled maintenance and upgrades – and you want to know what it is.
• Know the historical length of downtime or average outage time, especially if it’s unplanned downtime, or a specific outage.
• Learn about the type of redundancies and data protection policies they have in place, in the event of loss of data, data corruption, unscheduled downtime or security breach.
• If you want to cancel your service, how easy is it to get your data and migrate to another service provider?  Will they keep copies of your data after the service is cancelled?
• Get a copy of their SLA (Service Level Agreement) and support guarantees.

Located in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, Kinetik IT is a full-service information technology and internet services provider, offering a wide array of technology and internet strategy solutions, as well as sound advice.  To learn more about services and products, and to stay up to date with Kinetik IT, visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

There are several proven software development metholodologies out there and most of us who are professionals in developing software know that all these methodologies are proven for one project or another. The true question is which methodology is right for a specific project. So how do you choose the right software methodology for a specific job.