FIELD NOTES - IT Perspectives from the Field

pfSense and OPNsense: Open Source Firewalls for Serious Users

Hardware & Infrastructure, Networking, Security / jmbelanger

Most home owners and small businesses use whatever firewall came built into their router, a consumer-grade device with limited configurability and basic security features. pfSense and OPNsense are a different category of product entirely: fully featured, enterprise-grade firewall platforms that run on commodity hardware and cost nothing in software licensing. What They Are Both pfSense […]

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What is MFA and Why You Needs It Today

Devices & Peripherals, Security, Software & Systems / jmbelanger

Passwords alone no longer provide adequate protection for business accounts. Data breaches expose hundreds of millions of credentials every year. Phishing attacks harvest them directly. Password reuse means one compromised account becomes many. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) addresses all of these problems at once, and enabling it is one of the highest-impact security actions available to

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VPNs: Site-to-Site vs Remote Access

Cloud Computing, Networking, Security, Software & Systems / jmbelanger

VPN gets used as a catch-all term for very different things. A consumer VPN service that hides your browsing from your ISP is a very different product from the business VPN that lets your staff securely connect to your office network from home. Understanding the distinction, and knowing which type your business actually needs, helps

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VirtualBox vs Hyper-V vs Parallels vs vSphere: Which Should You Use?

Devices & Peripherals, Hardware & Infrastructure, Software & Systems / jmbelanger

Virtualisation platforms all do the same fundamental thing (run virtual machines) but they’re designed for quite different environments and use cases. Choosing the wrong one means either paying for capability you don’t need or working around limitations that shouldn’t apply to your situation. The Four Platforms VirtualBox Type: Type 2 hypervisor (runs as an application on

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Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace: A Practical Guide

Cloud Computing, Security, Software & Systems / jmbelanger

If you’re setting up or consolidating your business productivity platform, the choice almost always comes down to two options: Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Both are mature, capable platforms used by millions of businesses. The right choice depends on your team’s existing habits, your software requirements, and how you work. This isn’t a feature-by-feature comparison

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DNS: What It Is and Why It Matters for Your Business

Cloud Computing, Hardware & Infrastructure, Networking, Software & Systems / jmbelanger

Every time you type a website address into your browser, something happens behind the scenes that most people never think about. That something is DNS, and while it’s invisible when working correctly, it has a significant impact on your network’s speed, reliability, and security. What DNS Is DNS stands for Domain Name System. It’s a

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Phishing Attacks: How to Spot Them and Train Your Staff

Security, Software & Systems / jmbelanger

Phishing is responsible for the majority of ransomware infections, business email compromise, and credential theft affecting small businesses. It works not because people are careless, but because modern phishing attacks are well-crafted and difficult to distinguish from legitimate communications. The good news is that recognition can be taught. Staff who know what to look for

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VLANs Explained: Segmenting Your Business Network

Hardware & Infrastructure, Networking, Security / jmbelanger

If everyone on your network (staff laptops, guest devices, smart TVs, security cameras, and the office thermostat) shares the same connection with no separation between them, you have a flat network. It works, but it creates unnecessary risk and performance problems that are easy to avoid. VLANs are the solution. What is a VLAN? A

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Getting Started with Ubuntu (Part 1): Installation

Devices & Peripherals, General, Software & Systems / jmbelanger

Ubuntu is the most widely used desktop Linux distribution, and for good reason: it’s well-supported, straightforward to install, and has a large community behind it. If you’ve decided to try Linux, whether on a spare machine, a repurposed old laptop, or as your primary system, Ubuntu is the sensible starting point. This is the first

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RAID is Not a Backup: What People Get Wrong About Data Protection

Devices & Peripherals, Hardware & Infrastructure, Security / jmbelanger

It’s one of the most common misconceptions in small business IT: “We’re fine, we have RAID.” RAID is a valuable technology, but it doesn’t do what most people think it does. Treating it as a substitute for backup is a mistake that has caused real data loss for real businesses. What RAID Actually Does RAID

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