At Firefly Network Services, we live and die by our portable devices. Cell phones, laptops, and iPads give us the ability to quickly respond to client issues. While these devices are great for quickly responding, they can be expensive to replace or repair.

Most users tend to take care of their devices by putting them in protective cases, which goes a long way in protecting them. However, few people are aware that you can insure these devices for a nominal charge. We don’t take kick backs from these companies, but I thought I would share the services I use on my devices. My cell phone is insured with Asurion through Verizon.  I pay a nominal fee of $6.99 and it has absolutely been worth it.  I’ve had to replace the phone three times and each time I had a new phone within 24 hours with only a simple call.  My iPad 2 and Laptops are insured through Square Trade.

Fortunately, I haven’t had to make a claim with Square Trade.  However, their services are fairly inexpensive, less than $90 per device.  This gives me two years of supplemental warranty coverage as well as accidental damage coverage.  The accidental damage coverage is really the best part of the insurance, we see a lot of laptops that are broken after being dropped.

If you have any questions please feel free to give us a call at 312-618-8866

Network security at small businesses does not have to be expensive. Taking simple cost effective steps such as adding a hardware firewall, most cost less than $800, can go a long way in preventing headaches down the road. In fact, there are many free solutions such as security updates for servers and desktops, user education, and malware scanning that will help to protect your network from intrusion.

Unfortunately, Sony has learned the hard way the cost of skimping on security. Security expert and professor of computer science at Purdue University, Gene Spafford, testified to the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade that Sony was not running a firewall and had not applied security updates to their servers when they were compromised on April 27 and again on May 1st. Hackers were able to access Sony’s Playstation and Qriocity Network and steal names, addresses, phone numbers, user names, birth dates, email addresses, passwords and most likely credit card information.