Stop Gmail Hackers

Gmail is commonly hacked by criminals who want to send spam from your email account to people in your contact list because they know it's much more likely to be opened as the person knows you. If there has been an unusual amount of activity on your account, or if the account has been logged into from IP addresses that you don't normally use, Google will eventually take notice and send you an email alert to change your password.

If you are afraid your Gmail account has been or will be hacked, you can use a handy tool that Google provides to help you. First, log into your Gmail account and then scroll to the bottom of the page. You will see a line of text that says something like:

Last account activity: 14 minutes ago at this IP (34.248.195.22). Details

Click on Details and a chart will pop up that lists all activity on your account.

In the chart you will see the last IP addresses that logged into your account. You will see the IP addresses that you use to log in with. If an unusual address shows up in the list, Gmail will show it in red. If you haven't logged in from the place listed in red, your Gmail account has been compromised.

There is also a button at the top left of the chart that says "sign out all other sessions." Press this button if you see that someone is logged into your account. It will boot them out and you can change your password.

At the bottom of the chart you will see change. If you click this button, you will be given the opportunity to have Google alert you if there has been suspicious activity on your account. The alert will only be visible to you; the hackers won't be able to see it.

It's also important to change your password at least twice a month. Don't use the same password for every website you go to. That makes it much easier for the hackers to get your password. They won't try to get your password from a website with good security like your bank; they'll get your password from a website you have an account with that doesn't have good security like an online forum or a shopping site. If your password is the same everywhere the hacker can now log into your financial accounts.

How To Backup Gmail Emails

Learning how to backup Gmail emails is your first step towards email security. While most people remember to back up their data files, they tend to forget about backing up their email accounts. This is a no-no. Technology is not without error. While Gmail is normally reliable, accidents do happen. If something goes wrong with your email account, you need to be prepared.

You could find yourself locked out of your account for no known reason. A hacker could hack his way into your account and begin deleting important emails and contacts. What if Gmail experiences an outage? How will you access your needed information? Some people have actually had their email accounts deleted without warning. You should always know how to backup Gmail emails so you can be prepared for the worst. Even if the worst-case scenario never happens to you, backing up your emails will give you the peace of mind you deserve.

The first thing you have to do is download and install a POP3 email program. These programs include Outlook and Thunderbird. Choose the POP3 program that you want and install it on your system. Once you have the program installed, you are ready to start backing up your Gmail account.

The next thing you need to do is configure your POP3 program with your Gmail. Gmail's help pages have specific instructions on the configuration process for several POP3 providers. Follow the instructions for configuring your program with your Google mail account and you are ready to back up your email data.

The backup process is simple. Open up your email program on your system and check for new mail. The program will begin to download all of your emails from Gmail. Keep in mind that the first time you perform this action, depending on how many emails you have, you could be in for a long wait. However, you can always work on other things while your emails are downloaded. Each of your emails in your Gmail account will be downloaded to your computer, giving you a hard copy of all of the data you need from your email account. If you wish, you can save the emails to an external source or even an online backup service for added protection.

Once all of your emails are downloaded, all you have to do is maintain this process. You do not have to open your POP3 email program every day. You can check for new mail once a week or however many times you want to backup your Gmail. The important thing is that you are backing up your email information, providing yourself a certain level of protection from the things that could go wrong. You can even force another download of all of your emails if you ever have the need. Just follow Google's instructions in their help files for forcing a complete email download, even if you have already downloaded before. By knowing how to back up Gmail emails, you will not have to worry about losing your email data.

How Do I Backup My Gmail?

This is a question that many people have because they fear losing their important email information. No matter how hard Google tries to be reliable, technology can fail and if it does, you should be prepared. Part of this preparation is learning how to back up your email account. If you were to lose access to your email account, you need your saved emails. You need your contacts. Losing access to your Gmail could be detrimental to your job or just a big hassle.

There are several ways to answer the question, how do I backup my Gmail? Five services are specifically geared toward backing up your emails. The first service is called Zoho. This company focuses on online collaboration tools for their customers. One of their featured tools is an email backup program. You can configure this program with your POP3 email account and backup your emails. Zoho offers free and paid accounts.

The second service is called Backupify. This service will backup your Gmail account, as well as various social sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Backupify offers free accounts and paid accounts - the paid versions offer free trials for customers to try out the service before purchasing. Once you set up your Backupify account, choose the services you want backed up, like Gmail, and the provider does the rest. This is a good option for someone who desires simplicity - just set it and forget it.

The third service is called Gmail Backup. As the name says, this is a program that is geared specifically toward backing up Gmail accounts. It is a free program that operates a bit differently than other programs. After signing up, you have to enter your email account settings. This service will even backup your labels, a nifty feature if you have your mail sorted into a lot of different labels. This particular service has a website full of useful information to help you learn how to backup your email account using the service.

The fourth service is called MailStore Home. It is another free program for backing up emails. It will backup more than one online email service. So, if you have various email addresses with Gmail, Yahoo and HotMail, this program will back them up to your computer. From there, you can save the information to an external source. This is a good program for someone who has more than one email account on the internet and needs all of them backed up in one place.

Finally, the fifth service is called Gmail Keeper. This service charges a one-time fee for backing up your emails, as well as your Google apps. This service backs up your emails and your labels. You can also schedule routine backups for your email account. You can try out the trial version with one profile and a limited amount of email backups, or you can opt for the one-time fee and get unlimited profiles and unlimited backups.

With any of these services, you'll be able to safely and securely backup your Gmail emails so you don't have to worry about losing your data ever again.

How to Archive Microsoft Outlook Items Based on the Year to Save Time and Prevent Email Corruption

n order to ease the task of locating old email messages it is recommended that a new archive file be created at the beginning of each year for storing messages received in that year. In addition to making it easier to find messages, creating a new archive file each year will help ensure that your archived messages do not become corrupted, and will help keep Outlook (and Microsoft Exchange if you use it) running at top performance. This document outlines the steps to create a new archive file for the new year and configure Outlook to use it. We will use Outlook 2007 in our examples, but other versions should be similar, although there may be slight variations in the menus.

Please note that depending on your Outlook archive settings you may have some messages from the end of the previous year stored in your new annual folder. For instance, if Outlook is set to archive messages older than three months, and auto-archive runs in February, you will have messages from November and December in your new folder.

Here are the steps required to create a new archive file for the new year.

1. Confirm the location of your current archive file, if it exists.
2. Open Microsoft Outlook
3. Click on TOOLS on the toolbar at the top of the Outlook window
4. Select OPTIONS from the popup menu.
5. Select the OTHER tab at the top of the options screen.
6. Click the AUTOARCHIVE button near the center of the window.
7. Make a note of the location listed near the center of the AutoArchive screen for "Move old items to". You may need to click into the field and use your arrow or END keys to see the full file path. It may be best to save to a network drive, to enable consistent data backup if your PC is not backed up regularly.
8. While you are here you may want to review your other autoarchive settings, such as how often it runs, how long to keep messages prior to being archived, if it should run automatically or if you want to do it manually (automatic is strongly recommended), etc.
9. Click the BROWSE button. The Find Personal Folders window should open.
10. Enter a meaningful name for the archive file such as "TMiller 2011 Archive" (use your own username), and click the OK button.
11. Click the OK button two more times to return you to the main Outlook window.
12. Now we must manually run autoarchive to actually create the file. Click FILE on the main toolbar.
13. Select ARCHIVE on the drop down menu.
14. Confirm that the Archive File location points to the file you just created.
15. Click the OK button to run AutoArchive. This will create your new archive file.
16. Now we must open the archive file to access your old messages easily from Outlook.
17. Click FILE on the main toolbar.
18. Click OPEN on the drop-down menu.
19. Select OUTLOOK DATA FILE.
20. Browse to the location that you recorded in step five and select your new archive file.
21. Click the OK button.
22. You should now see "ARCHIVE FOLDERS" in your Outlook navigation pane.
23. You may repeat steps 15 through 19 for any additional archive files that you would like to open.

Once you begin archiving your outlook messages in annual folders you will find that old messages are easier to locate, your Outlook file will open faster, and you will have fewer problems with corrupted Outlook files.

Ted Miller, President
AVIK Technologies, Inc.

We manage technology, so you can manage your business!

Ted believes that most organizations, regardless of size, have the same basic information technology requirements. Regardless of whether an organization has five employees or five thousand, they have the critical needs of security, Internet connectivity, file (data) storage and protection, printing, email, backup, system reliability, etc. The difference in IT needs between small and large organizations is primarily one of scale. The need is the same, the size and cost of the solution may not be.

Using a Mail Service Provider

A mail service provider makes it possible for a business to maintain access to all their emails without the hassles that would normally go along with that task. Because of the tremendous amount of information that businesses exchange with one another today, the sheer volume of that information can be come so large that it becomes nearly impossible to manage it and, certainly, to maintain fast access to it. A mail service provider has more than enough space to handle the largest archives and, using good technological resources can provide ready access to those archives.

How it Works

On a large, professional-level server, a mail service provider can archive a huge amount of information. That information is regularly backed up and this ensures that it is not lost. When your company needs access to older information, the database services that these providers have available make it easy to execute very fast searches of the archived information and to pull any information needed from them. This means that your own resources do not have to be used for this task and, more importantly, that you do not have to provide those resources yourself.

Precise Functions

There are times when, of the thousands upon thousands of emails that a business receives every year, one of them is particularly important. When one of those emails needs to be retrieved because of having been accidentally deleted, having a mail service provider is a huge advantage. Email retention services mean that the provider keeps a copy of all of your emails. This eliminates the need to search through your various desktops for the email and virtually eliminates the chances that an email will be destroyed permanently. There is a huge advantage in these services in another regard, as well.

Some information has to be retained to meet contractual or legal requirements. It's too risky to leave that retention to an individual or to rely on a local server to make sure that there's always a copy available. For businesses that need to make sure that some information is never lost, email retention services are vital. Whenever a specific email needs to be retrieved, a good mail service provider can offer their technology to the effort and make sure that the business can get the email off of their servers and restore it to their desktop or wherever else it needs to go.

Costs

Compared to the costs of providing the technology to offer all this security and convenience locally, hiring a mail service provider is very inexpensive. It avails the company that hires them of all the technology they need and ensures that the business doesn't have to worry about anything being lost. The amount of backup technology, protection against viruses and other services that a mail service provider offers would be far beyond the means of most businesses to do on their own. If you need to make sure your business has everything covered in terms of email information security, a managed mail service provider is a great asset.

How to Use Gmail for a Paperless Administration Workflow

If you're serious about setting up a business that can run from anywhere in the world, paper just won't hack it. You need access to your entire history of administrative bumf, but carting around lever-arch files and archive boxes is going to seriously increase your baggage costs. The obvious solution is to go paperless - something that most businesses dream of, but many struggle to make a reality.

A good step on the way to ridding your life completely of paper, is to at least digitise the administrative part - documents like incoming bills, statements, bank documents, tax notifications etc., which tend to arrive in paper format, but are also increasingly transmitted electronically. Whatever system you use, it should form part of a workflow where documents and communication, whether paper or digital, flow through the same process of inbox, processing, action and archiving.

My preferred tool for the job is Gmail, which has the following distinct advantages: 

1. It's free!
2. The storage allowance is massive, which means it should be years before you run out of space to store your documents; in fact, its unlikely to ever happen.
3. It's highly searchable, which means you can easily find what you are looking for once its archived.
4. It has powerful organisational components, like labels.
5. It features an 'Inbox', which is the cornerstone of any good workflow.
6. It's backed by one of the biggest companies on the planet, so my data feels safe.
7. No need to back up or administrate any servers, it's all done for you.
8. It's available all the time, anywhere in the world, from any internet connected computer.
9. Essentially, it's an email system, which means getting information into it is very easy.
10. Email is ubiquitous and compatible with so many applications (like desktop email apps).

How to set up the system

Here's a step by step guide to implementing and running Gmail as the centre of your paperless office and administrative workflow.

1. Set up a dedicated Gmail account for your paperless workflow

If you've already got a Google account, you're going to need to set up another one in order to have a fully dedicated Gmail account. You don't want to mix your regular email with your admin system. Choose an address like 'mycompanyadmin@gmail.com', although it's not that important at this stage.

2. Set up an email redirect from an address you own

For example, if you own the domain yourcompany.com, set up an address like 'inbox@yourcompany.com' which should simply forward to the Gmail address you have set up. This gives you the advantage of getting used to an email address that includes your own domain; plus, should you ever choose to use another provider instead of Gmail, you would just change the target of the redirect and go on using the same email for your admin system.

3. Get administrative email flowing into your INBOX

You're probably already signed up to 101 different internet services, some of which you may pay for, and most of which will send you monthly administrative-type emails including statements, bills, official notifications etc. Go into all of these accounts and change the email address that they use to contact you to your new INBOX address. From now on, all of this distracting administrative stuff will flow into your INBOX, separate from your regular, every-day email.

If you do happen to get any admin-type emails in your regular email (and you almost certainly will, at least at first), dealing with them is easy - just forward them to your admin INBOX.

4. Get your paper flowing into your INBOX

The rest of the administrative load you receive is probably in paper format, some of which may arrive by post, the rest you might collect in person (like receipts). Your going to need to digitise this to get it into your new Gmail admin INBOX. Get yourself a document scanner, turn all paper into PDFs and email them into your INBOX.

Because paper can be harder to search digitally than stuff that originated as email, I prefer to use a simple indexing system for all paperwork emailed into the INBOX - both myself and my post sorter use the following scheme: 

1. Paperwork is sorted into different types: invoices, cheques, general correspondence, receipts.
2. Each batch is scanned and emailed separately. The nature of each batch is indicated simply in the 'Subject' of the email with: INVOICES, CHEQUES, GENERAL, RECEIPTS.
3. The sender, or originator, of each item is detailed in the body of the email. So, for example, for a batch of invoices from various suppliers, the body of the email would simply appear as:

Supplier A

Supplier B

Supplier C

Nothing else apart from the PDF attachment goes in the email.

This indexing framework means the archive can be easily searched using Google's tools to find whatever item you might be looking for, e.g., 'invoice supplier A', will return a list of emails containing invoices from Supplier A. As they will be ordered chronologically, it should be easy to find what you need. The advantage of using Gmail is that the search functionality is extremely powerful and using advanced syntax you can always precisely pinpoint your required items.

5. Designate a time for processing the INBOX

Now that all your admin - both digital and paper - is landing in your INBOX and keeping out of your way, you should be able to get on with running your business. However, you will of course need to periodically process the contents of the INBOX, just as you would a pile of physical mail. Rather than doing this on a continued basis, it's best to batch it. Designate a weekly slot to process your INBOX and follow this procedure: 

1. Open each item and take the appropriate action, i.e., record invoices, expenses and payments, action any notifications and reply to any letters.
2. Once processed, hit 'Archive', which takes the email out of the inbox and places it in a folder called 'All Mail'.
3. Repeat until your INBOX is clear.

6. Use your archived mail to search for any documents you need to reference

Now that your admin is being nicely archived in Gmail instead of folders and files, you've got access to it wherever and whenever you are. Should you need to pull up a receipt from last year's trade show, just go into your Gmail account and search for 'receipt trade show' and you're done!

Email Archiving Appliance Solves Multiple Dilemmas

Many organizations today are experiencing problems with email storage. Email volume has increased significantly - and these emails often need to be carefully archived to meet legal and regulatory requirements. The email archiving appliance helps businesses address these problems.

If your company must provide emails as evidence, it's not sufficient to have just backed up the company's emails. You must be able to find them quickly and accurately. This software automatically archives and codes all emails and attachments, and indexes each email with suitable information such as date, time, sender, receiver, etc. After being stored, the emails can't be deleted or altered.

Similar to a "black box" airplane data recorder for electronic messages, the software supplies a thorough, secure, tamper-evident repository for all emails and instant messages sent into, out of, or within a business. Email archiving system meets legal requirements for the enduring safekeeping of electronic communications.

Meeting the needs of several thousand users if necessary, email archiving appliance facilitates data retrieval; users only need to search for the desired messages or attachments one time. And all search activities are automatically recorded for forensic uses. Frequently, installation can take an hour or less. Then your business can begin archiving your emails automatically.

Email archiving appliance features include: 

• Legally compliant, tamper-evident, e-mail archiving
• Immediate retrieval of archived information
• User-friendly data retrieval methods
• Simple integration into pre-existing mail structures (AD integration)
• Outlook plug-in gives access to e-mails previously deleted from the in-box
• Audit Compliant (all activities are seamlessly recorded and reported to an auditor)
• Very secure hardware with built-in redundancy
• Suitable for SMEs to Corporates

Email Archiving Is Becoming A Necessity For Online Businesses

Email archiving is a lot like air conditioning. No, it won't keep you cool on a warm day, but it does have one major thing in common with that great invention. At one point, air conditioning was a plaything of the rich, and wasn't thought of as accessible or necessary by common people. Now that is no longer the case.

Email archiving can no longer be thought of as a luxury, either. More businesses than ever are finding that email archiving is a fact of their life!

What's causing this newfound love of storing email? Regulation, of course. FINRA, SOX, HIPAA, FRCP, DPA, IDA. FOIA, MiFID, is just a partial list of regulation that applies to a growing number of businesses. Not only is regulation growing, but it is growing in complexity. One thing seems certain, though, and that's email needs to be archived in a specific format for many businesses. Failure to do so can result in huge fines and potential ruin. For that reason, smart businesses are making sure they do everything in their power to comply.

The FRCP alone is enough reason for just about every single organization going to consider archiving all their emails. If the organization is ever sued in a Federal Court, they may very well be expected to produce electronic mail. Failure to do so could result in them losing out. The only way to prepare for this type of eventuality is to begin storing your email now, before a serious situation arises. Email archiving is an essential type of insurance, especially in instances when a dispute between two parties arises.

Disputes are common for companies who sell online. E-commerce companies are well-served to archive email for this reason. Many credit card merchant companies these days will allow archived email to be entered in a dispute, which saves on traditional postage and helps give the company a leg up when something goes wrong with a customer.

Litigation can be an unpleasant event, but it usually is not a surprise. Email correspondence may end up playing a role in settling the dispute, so organizations benefit from storing them indefinitely.

Email archiving is also a necessary component of compliance programs. Data security and privacy policies demand that email is stored a certain way and is accessible in a specified manner. Organizations define these policies once and then can 'set it and forget it' when it comes to their email compliance.

Like air conditioning, email archiving once was thought of as something only other people need or can afford. Now, it's as needed as cool A/C on a blistering August day.

Boomerang Email Add-On for Outlook or Gmail

Boomerang is an email add-on service (currently available for Outlook and for Gmail), which lets you schedule outgoing emails and postpone incoming emails for when you need them.

Outgoing emails can be sent at a specified time, and incoming emails can be temporarily archived from your inbox and magically reappear at a date or time you specify.

This is actually fantastically useful. Why? Because it lets you implement good email habits, eliminates wasted time and frees up your attention. It's a much better system than a back-logged inbox or cluttered folders where one forgets what's in there.

Let's first look at incoming emails:

With this system, every incoming email is instantly actionable and can be either

• deleted
• archived
• answered/forwarded and then archived or deleted
• scheduled for later arrival in your inbox - when you want it.

As the Boomerang website states:

"Want a cleaner inbox, but don't want to lose track of important messages? Use Boomerang to take messages out of your inbox until you actually need them. Just click the Boomerang button when you have an email open, and choose when you need it again. Boomerang will archive the message. At the time you choose, we'll bring it back to your inbox, marked unread, starred, or even at the top of your message list."

This way you can actually handle every single email in your inbox and get to "Inbox Zero". You can take your attention off remembering which emails need to be handled later. You don't need to make notes or calendar entries on who or what needs follow-up, as Boomerang brings each email or reminder back to your inbox at the right date/time. The benefits in terms of increased productivity and ease of mind are immense.

Now for outgoing emails:

Outgoing emails that should be sent later (birthday greetings for example) can be scheduled for being sent at the date/time you prefer.

Outgoing emails can also be scheduled to appear as reminders in your inbox if you get no reply within a set date/time. This way you know that your email was not answered and you can then follow-up as needed. The point of this is that the system reminds you, and you don't have to keep follow-up reminders in your head.

Pros:

• Boomerang is incredibly easy to use.
• It let's you Get Things Done.
• You can take control of your inbox and your schedule while keeping your inbox clean and uncluttered.
• Your attention is freed up and focused on what you want to be doing.
• Your scheduled emails are always available if you need them.

Cons:

• Boomerang is only available for Outlook and Gmail.
• For use with Gmail, you need to use either the Google Chrome or the Mozilla Firefox browser.

What Boomerang does is deceptively simple, but the benefits are enormous.

The Benefits of Email Compliance in a Business

Email has become the standard method of correspondence used by businesses sending important and sometimes confidential messages. Such sensitive information needs to be archived for possible future use in order to comply with eDiscovery requests, specific regulations as well as the company's email compliance policies.

Email correspondence is used for both internal and external affairs therefore it is important that a copy of all emails is archived for possible future needs relating to legal, compliance and human resource issues. A company must also be in a position to respond to eDiscovery requests at short notice.

Why a company needs email archiving

Existing regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and the FRCP treat emails as being equal to paper-based documents in terms of valid and legal documentation presented in a court of law and are therefore admissible during an eDiscovery request.

eDiscovery is the process of locating, securing and using documentation from a company's archives in a legal setting, so a company must have the ability to procure the necessary documents with the confirmation that these have not been tampered with. Failure to abide by procedures could result in court fines and other financial burdens, as well as a failing reputation.

How email archiving should be implemented

For security, maintenance and resource reasons, email archives should not be archived on the mail server but should have their own localized server that is specific to the task.

Having your emails archived on a separate database ensures more protection for the archives should the server crash, as well as lightening the load on the server. When archiving is another process that the email server is meant to handle, its resources are being stretched to capacity risking poor performance in both tasks. A dedicated email server and a dedicated archiving server render the upkeep of both machines a simpler and cleaner process.

Moreover, separate backups of both servers ensure a safer environment, as by having the archived emails on a separate server, should the email server crash all is not lost since the archived emails would be accessible and easily recoverable meaning that work can be resumed from a certain point.

Email archiving compliance

In industries and countries where regulations require organizations to monitor user activity and keep audit trails, a system that records, logs and retains a database of user activity, or other secure methods such as encryption will ensure that emails have not been tampered with as this would render them inadmissible in a court of law. An auditing facility is also important for compliance purposes.

Log files and counts must prove that all emails (including their attachments) are being captured and can be searched for, found and viewed in their original format. Advising users that their emails are being recorded and archived will act as a deterrent to any abuse of the system.

Email archiving is becoming a standard practice in today's businesses as the implementation of a successful email compliance policy could save a company a lot of time, money and resources, and provide guarantees that it is in a position to respond to eDiscovery processes and fulfil the requirements of compliance regulation which the company must adhere to.

8 Steps To Archiving Emails

Do you archive your e-mails in Outlook? You really should, since it's become the norm for many companies that have the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Just imagine that a client calls you up and states that they never ordered your product/service and doesn't want to pay for it. What do you do? Well, you can go back to your old correspondence that you and your client had via e-mail, to show that they agreed to this.

Here are 8 simple steps how of you can archive your e-mails. I will also explain on how to retrieve these, if you ever need to back to one of them.

1. Click File, then Import and Export.
2. Click on Export to a File.
3. Click on Personal Folder File (.pst).
4. Click Filter.
5. Now, you can search for particular types of criteria, such as time frames, who you received/sent e-mails from/to, etc. - it really depends on what you want to archive, which you specify here.
6. Type in the file name that you want to use as well as the location and choose the option that best suits your needs below. It's always best to archive your files on a different hard drive or even a CD/DVD, just in case your computer crashes and you can't retrieve your data.
7. Click Finish.
8. Now you have a copy of your old e-mails and you can go ahead and use the Advanced Find function to delete these e-mails. Just type in the same criteria as you used during the archiving process.

In order to retrieve your old e-mails, simply follow these 3 simple steps:

1. Click File, Open, Outlook Data File.
2. Now locate the particular file that you archived and click OK.
3. You will now notice that you have a new Mailbox in your All Mail Folders section with the file name of your archive file.

You can now view all of your old e-mails that you archived.

Take care - of your clutter!

Email Archiving Software Is an Investment You Can't Afford Not to Make

With today's economic environment, companies are more aware than ever of how much they're spending; however, email archiving software is an expenditure that businesses shouldn't neglect.

Many companies see email archiving as a "non-business critical" expense and frequently don't expect a quick financial return on what some think of as a high upfront investment. But email archiving is not only an essential function for your organization, it can save time and money in direct and indirect ways. Some of the manufacturers of the email archiving solution, strive to make their program affordable and has discovered that it saves money for companies in other ways.

For instance, some of the email archiving softwares automatically archives a copy of every email sent or received within a business right away. Therefore, emails need not take up valuable local computer space for long.

Some of the manufacturers of the email archiving solution also provide a storage management or "stubbing" feature which replaces an email on the mail server with a "stub" directing a user to the email's location in the archive. Instead of preserving several versions of the same email, the program saves one version and gives links to it that are much smaller than the original email. Users can recover the email as easily as if it is archived locally, but need not create a big storage drain on the server.

This decrease conserves storage space on the mail server and also allows you to back up your data less frequently, saving storage space and staff time. Thus, the same amount of data doesn't need backing up as frequently.

Some of such software also considerably decreases the time IT staff must spend locating old emails. The program's user-friendly interface and quick search function permit your employees to look for archived emails themselves, without requiring IT department involvement.

A less noticeable cost saving results from employees' awareness that their emails are being archived. They grow more conscious of what is in the emails they send. Some businesses have experienced a drop in email volume of up to 80 percent.

Nowadays people want to ensure that their investments provide a direct return. The cost savings we highlight are only a couple examples that demonstrate how the upfront expense for an archiving solution would not be as high as it initially seems. In many cases, a good such a software solution will save a business far more money than it costs.

In addition, more businesses are receiving fines from courts or regulatory organizations due to poor email retention policies. Penalties can cost millions of pounds or dollars - an initial investment in such a software appears small by comparison.

To learn more about email archiving software of Cryoserver, and its product such as email archiving appliance call toll-free

Email Archiving on Cloud Nine

The main reason for businesses to be involved with email archiving is for compliance, litigation, support, storage management and knowledge management. Some businesses may also use archiving for disaster recovery and monitoring employee communications.

Email could be considered one of the main forms of communication across the globe, and has superseded snail mail as the main tool for communicating with friends and family whether they live on the other side of the world or are just up the road. Though email is not strictly for personal communication, it is also the top method used for sharing information between companies and it is not uncommon for organisations to have their own unique email addresses.

For businesses that use email daily, archiving is essential to the everyday running of a business. There are several reasons why a company should employ archiving in their day to day activities. Most importantly, in the event of a disaster that causes the organisations internal network to be damaged, archiving will act as critical safety net, ensuring important communications are preserved. As well, security is an important reason for a company to consider archiving. An archiving solution can help monitor in-bound and out-bound traffic to minimise data leaks and security breaches.

As well, a good email archiving solution can act as an internal knowledge bank which your business can exploit through data mining. For example, customer support emails are a great resource and may be analysed to compartmentalise common enquiries, as well as analyse what the most effective response to common issues were. Technical support may even want to use the email archive to locate unresolved questions that can be used to develop and improve troubleshooting guides.

The downside to email archiving is the time and effort it can take if done in-house. A company's IT can get bogged down by email maintenance and message recovery. Especially with businesses sending and receiving upwards of 100 emails per person per day, that can really add up and would put a strain on any internal mail server. But if the in-house email solution is supplemented by a cloud service, automated archiving and instant access to archived emails can mean saved resources and reduced costs.

Selecting email archiving solution can be difficult because there are numerous companies offering archiving systems, so businesses should look for a compliance solution that provides flexibility and is available in different formats.

If an organisation uses an in-house mail server, a cloud email archiving solution is the best way to take full advantage of information contained with a company's emails while at the same time reducing the need to invest in costly severs. With a cloud email archiving, eDiscovery is quick and easy and a company can have full access to archived emails for continuity and compliance purposes. A cloud system will also act as a vital life line should disaster strike. And with email being filtered through the cloud, it also reduces the server load by pre-filtering spam and viruses.

Email Archiving and Mailbox Size - Best Practice Recommendations Under Microsoft's Exchange Server

Background

Today's businesses, large and small, depend on their email systems for a significant majority of their communication needs. Email has developed from a rudimentary, inaccessible technology used only by the tech-savvy to its current role as a rapid, reliable communications tool for just about everyone. Along the way, as user needs and data storage have evolved - remember when 1 Mb of storage was a big deal? - the use of email systems has increased well beyond their original scope of sending and receiving short messages. Today's email systems provide calendaring, group collaboration, task management, workflow and, ever-increasingly, file and data storage. Users now store many years worth of email and attachments, and refer back to them on a frequent basis for important historical information.

This increasing document retention, along with the ever-increasing size of attachments, has caused email systems to dramatically increase in size and therefore demand higher technical capacity and management. Meanwhile, the email content itself has increased in value - often being sensitive, proprietary or even mission-critical in nature. It is essential that today's business protects its email investment and associated systems with document retention and archiving policies. An effective policy will balance system needs for security & stability with user needs that include rapid access.

Over the years of working with our clients, Seitel Systems has developed a set of best practices for dealing with these complex needs. Outlined below are our recommendations for retention and archiving under Microsoft's Exchange Server.

Group Policy Templates

Regardless of whether Outlook Auto Archive is used to manage mailboxes, the Outlook Group Policy Template should be used to centrally control settings (including whether or not archiving is allowed). Configuration information is available below.

Outlook 2007: Outlk12.adm Outlook 2003: Outlk11.adm

Exchange 2000 Environments Exchange 2000 is limited in the amount of available storage to 16 GB (17 GB for short term repairs). As a result, SSL recommends that these organizations implement mailbox management policies as follows:

1. Mailbox Size Limits: to 500 MB or smaller depending on the overall size of the organization. Smaller organizations can have larger mailbox limits. This should be managed through mailbox quotas enforced by Exchange Server. As users approach their assigned quota they'll receive warning messages to that effect. Once they reach the quota they'll be restricted from sending and receiving emails.

2. Outlook Email Auto Archive should be configured for all users to run with the following settings:

Turn On Auto Archive: Yes

Run AutoArchive every days: 7

Prompt before AutoArchive runs: No

Delete Expired Items: No

Archive or delete old items: No

(note: this is a setting relevant to email retention policies and expiration dates, not the deleted items folder)

Show archive folder in folder list: Yes

Clean out items older than: Never

Permanently delete old items: No

(note: this is a setting relevant to email retention policies and expiration dates, not the deleted items folder)

3. Archive folders should be stored in the following locations:

· Workstation users should archive to a pst file located on the network. This runs the risk of file corruption as MSFT recommends against using a network share for email auto archiving but alternative solutions (such as archiving locally) entail greater risk of data loss due to disk or backup issues.Search the Microsoft support site for kb/297019 to find the supporting article.

· Laptop users should archive to a pst file located on their local hard drive. A manual process will be required to copy these psts to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are backed up. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

· A manual process will be required for all users to ensure that individual pst files do not exceed 2 GB in size. The frequency of this process will depend on the rate of email sending & receiving, but should be checked on at least an annual basis. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

Exchange 2003 Environments Exchange 2003 is limited in the amount of available storage to 75 GB. This is likely more storage space than will be consumed by the average small business, but for those businesses that approach this limit SSL recommends one of the following solutions:

· Upgrade to Exchange Server 2007 with its near-unlimited storage space. This is the likely solution for businesses on older hardware or simply wanting to take advantage of the features of 2007.

· Add in a second mailbox store on the existing Exchange Server and migrate mailboxes to balance the storage load. This solution assumes available disk space and remaining useful life of the server hardware.

Due to the large available storage space and the inherent complexities of archive files SSL does not recommend implementing mailbox size limits or email auto-archiving policies except for laptop (mobile) users. Prudent user management of their mailboxes is encouraged through deletion of non-essential emails especially those with large attachments that do not need to be archived. The Outlook Group Policy Template should be used to prevent users from enabling Auto Archive on their mailbox.

Mobile users with large mailboxes will experience significant performance degradation when operating outside of the office LAN. Cached exchange mode or offline storage files are not recommended as they are both limited to 2 GB file sizes, plus their required synchronization time can be painful when done over a WAN connection (broadband or otherwise). For mobile users SSL recommends the following:

1. Outlook should be configured to use RPC over HTTPS to allow secure access to the Exchange Server whenever the laptop is connected to the internet

2. To keep performance at an acceptable level it is recommended that mobile users need to keep their mailboxes below 500 MB in size. This could be managed through mailbox quotas enforced by Exchange Server.

3. Auto Archive should be enabled for mobile users to run quietly every 7 days and archive information to a pst file located on their local hard drive. A manual process will be required to copy these psts to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are backed up. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

4. A manual process will be required for mobile users to ensure that individual pst files do not exceed 2 GB in size. The frequency of this process will depend on the rate of email sending & receiving, but should be checked on at least an annual basis. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

Exchange 2007 Environments Exchange 2007 offers near unlimited storage limited only by the available hard drive space. As a result, SSL does not recommend implementing mailbox size limits or email auto-archiving policies except for laptop (mobile) users. Prudent user management of their mailboxes is encouraged through deletion of non-essential emails especially those with large attachments that do not need to be archived. The Outlook Group Policy Template should be used to prevent users from enabling Auto Archive on their mailbox.

Mobile users with large mailboxes will experience significant performance degradation when operating outside of the office LAN. Cached exchange mode or offline storage files are not recommended as they are both limited to 2 GB file sizes, plus their required synchronization time can be painful when done over a WAN connection (broadband or otherwise). For mobile users SSL recommends the following:

1. Outlook should be configured to use RPC over HTTPS to allow secure access to the Exchange Server whenever the laptop is connected to the internet

2. To keep performance at an acceptable level it is recommended that mobile users need to keep their mailboxes below 500 MB in size. This could be managed through mailbox quotas enforced by Exchange Server.

3. Auto Archive should be enabled for mobile users to run quietly every 7 days and archive information to a pst file located on their local hard drive. A manual process will be required to copy these psts to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are backed up. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

4. A manual process will be required for mobile users to ensure that individual pst files do not exceed 2 GB in size. The frequency of this process will depend on the rate of email sending & receiving, but should be checked on at least an annual basis. SSL recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.

Links:

Configuration information for retention settings is available at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303413.aspx (Click on "configure retention settings).

The Outlook Administrative template is located in the Office Resource Kit which can be downloaded from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/desktop/default.aspx. Different versions are available via the Home->Versions link.

Why Businesses Need a Solution For Outlook Email Archiving

Ranging from business compliance to the performance of Outlook itself there are many reasons why in today's world a company needs to look for a successful Outlook email archiving solution. There are a number of issues that businesses face with regards to email archiving and compliance below this article focuses on the more critical issues and some of the solutions to these problems. Whilst this article is focusing predominantly on businesses that use the Outlook and Microsoft Exchange systems much of what is discussed will be relevant to all businesses, particularly in the US and the UK.

Research has shown that the average worker can spend up to 90 minutes of every workday managing their mailboxes and performing archiving and data management tasks. This leads to loss of productivity to the entire business. Aside from the productivity issues most Exchange servers are only set to backup information once per day, meaning that any emails that have been deleted through the course of a day are not archived this can also be said to the auto archiving feature that Outlook has. Also due to the way that the auto-archive feature works, finding a specific email that has been archived is incredibly laborious and time consuming.

There are several issues that need to be looked at with regard to the need for a good email archiving solution, these issues are outlined below.

Data flow over time

Before looking at any of the legal ramifications or performance problems of not having a good email archiving solutions it is important to first look at the points which create these issues.

Even smaller companies will generate massive amounts of emails over a long period of time. This is caused by storage of emails and attachments, however part of the problem stems from having all versions of these emails stored for example: an email is sent out with a 1 MB attachment to every employee (30 people). Every reply to that email is also now being stored along with the original email text. Whilst the email sizes are not of any real significance at this point, over a period of a year with multiple instances of this example the storage required will add up, especially with taking into account the attachment being saved also.

Auto Archiving

Many businesses feel that they have no problems with archiving as they have the Outlook auto archiving in place for their company emails. This unfortunately is not as helpful as it may at first seem to be. As mentioned earlier, any emails deleted prior to the auto-archive taking place are not archived. This in itself provides massive issues with compliance which will be covered later.

A common problem shared by all companies that rely on the Outlook auto archive tool is initially the build up of emails and more specifically the overall deterioration of performance from the Microsoft Exchange servers as a consequence of a large email volume. As the Exchange servers fill with archived emails the system begins to slow and takes longer to perform each backup. The servers filling also increase the chance of a critical systems failure.

Outlook saves all email data as.pst files when it archives the old emails. Many.pst files will be created over time as bulk archives are created over a period of time. How often this happens depends on the specific settings a company has organised themselves and how many emails the company has sent and received within specifically set parameters. These parameters would be determined by a company's individual settings. The more data stored on a.pst file the slower the servers and Outlook will function for their various daily tasks such as a backup.

A more pressing concern with the way that Outlook auto archive functions however is that bulk email packages are saved as.pst files, specifically a maximum storage per file of 20 GB. 20 GB of space can store thousands of emails; if a.pst file is corrupted the information on every one of those emails can potentially be lost forever. Aside from the difficulty for an individual to navigate these files to locate specific emails when called upon to do so, if the files are lost this can provide very costly issues with regard to compliance.

Compliance

The issues of compliance covers multiple different points that will affect companies to different degrees depending on what countries they are in or do business with. That said all of these points are worth understanding as the laws are quickly changing world wide to cover the issues raised by emails being regarded as legal documents. Whilst the specifics below are predominantly for the UK, other countries will have similar laws with different specifics laid out.

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (UK)

The public have the right to ask for copies of emails from public authorities. The authorities then have 20 days in which to provide the copies.

Data Protection Act

Individuals have the right to request for copies of personal data held about them by an authority or company. The authority or company then has a 40 day time frame for compliance; failure to comply can lead to heavy fines.

Employment Tribunals

The highest possible award at a tribunal for unfair dismissal in the UK is £66,200. With more communication in the places of work happening via email, companies need to ensure that they have easy access to all possible evidence available to protect themselves

Court Actions

A wronged party has 6 years from the date that a contract has been breached or a civil wrong committed to bring a court action. With emails potentially being used by either party it is necessary for a company or organisation to be able to access any information required that was stored within those previous 6 years. This means it is paramount that an organisation has the best possible email archiving system available to them. The system the organisation uses can make the difference between winning and losing a court action. Furthermore inability to provide requested evidence can result in heavy fines depending on the nature of the court action, thus having the ability to store and easily find the information could avoid these fines before a court action ever reaches a court.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act

This is a piece of US legislation also affects any company outside of the US which is listed on NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange, including subsidiaries of US companies that are themselves based outside of the US. The Act states that any transactional data meet the requirement of the Act. Furthermore the Act sates over several sections that an organisation's IT department is obligated to be able to provide any and all electronic data pertinent to a potential case during the discovery period in the event of a lawsuit or investigation. Simply put an organisation must be able to provide copies of any electronic data as requested during the discovery period, the period prior to a case where evidence is collected to prepare for the legal proceeding, to a legal action. Failure to provide the evidence in the discovery period results in heavy fines which are weighted against the nature of the legal proceeding.

The Solution

Most of the problems outlined above are not new and have been occurring for years, however with the exponential increase in the use of computers and by extension email these problems have begun to be far more severe and obvious. The only possible solution is for a company to utilise an email archiving solution. The qualities one should look for in an email archiving solution, as outlined by the problems listed above, are as follows:

• Can function independently from the Outlook's auto archive facility
• Allows for settings to be standardised with capacity for users to create and archive new email folders with ease
• A program that does not rely on storing emails in bulk but instead saves each email individually so as to avoid the issues of file corruption. However still provides the functionality to archive files at the same time
• A solution that allows for customised archiving structures allowing companies to tailor how and where the files are saved.
• A solution which allows for deletion upon archiving of the emails from Outlook to again avoid high email volume effecting Microsoft Exchange servers
• Intuitive design to negate the need for training or complications prior to use of the solution. The point of the solution is to increase productivity not to replace the reason why productivity was down.
• A solution that saves emails in a format that is readable independently of Outlook

It is important that all these criteria be met at the very least when looking for a solution to email archiving with Outlook to avoid all of the problems listed above. In the end avoiding these problems could save your business time and money and avoid the issue of decreased productivity from staff spending too much time organising mailboxes.