Today I had a client whose “old computer guy” had copied her entire “My Documents” folder to her Windows 2000 server. Apparently he had not set the folder permissions so that she was the only person who could access the files. Therefore everyone had access and obviously she didn’t want everyone viewing her files. So I did what she asked and I removed the files from her server.

This could have been avoided, and he would probably still be her “computer guy”, if he had just set the permissions on the server’s shared folder. Doing so really isn’t difficult but if you don’t know that you have to do it, there can be serious problems.

This leads to the differences between a “computer guy” and a computer network consultant. A computer guy is typically someone who is good with computers and can generally fix a lot of problems. But the more in depth issues are the ones that cause the more expensive problems. If one of the lady’s employees had gotten a file that was not meant for them to see, there could have been serious repercussions such as seeing other employees pay rates or socil security numbers. Just for the record, these are examples, I do not recommend keeping such data in your “My Documents” folder.

A “computer guy” may be less expensive than a “computer network consultant” but the savings in headache and possible lawsuits is enormous.

Happy Computing,
Tim

Biden PC is a Computer Network Consulting Company.

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