If you are a business owner who takes credit cards, you should be well aware that as of October 1, 2015, the rules for credit card processing changed. As of that date, banks and credit card companies are required to provide their customers with the new EMV “chip cards” and merchants are required to use the EMV system when possible. Any merchant who takes credit cards with the traditional swiping method can be held liable for fraudulent transactions. This is a big shift in who will carry the burden for credit card fraud and small business owners could be caught holding the bag if they are not compliant!

For as much publicity as this change received in the early part of this year, I am quite surprised at just how many banks, credit card processing companies, and businesses have not transitioned to the new EMV system. Along with the EMV requirement, many businesses are also holding back on accepting mobile payment systems like Apple Pay, which are also highly secure. Many customers are asking the places they shop at if they accept Apple Pay and companies that do not are perceived to be behind the times.

In talking with many of my clients, I have found that many businesses are putting off accepting the newer payment systems because of the potential costs and hassle in switching their credit card processing equipment. Without the newer equipment, they can not use the EMV chip cards nor can they do mobile payments. In addition, I’ve run into businesses that do have the newer equipment, but they have not yet activated the EMV and/or Apple Pay transactions because their credit card processing company has been slow in implementing the change or would charge them more for using the newer technologies.

I am fortunate to know Lisa York of Beacon Payments, who has helped me learn quite a bit about how the credit card processing industry works. She has worked with many business owners whom I know transition their companies to the newer payment systems and often is able to save them money on their credit card transaction fees at the same time. She says that the process to change credit card equipment is nowhere near as hard as many business owners think it will be. Usually just replacing the “swiper” terminal is enough for a merchant to accept both EMV and mobile payments such as Apple Pay. She also says the transition to the new systems should not be as expensive as many companies are charging. While other payment processing companies have used the newer technologies as an excuse to charge extra for each transaction, her company does not charge anything different for companies to accept EMV or Apple Pay payments.

As many businesses are doing end-of-year reviews, it is a perfect time for them to review their credit card processing arrangements to find opportunities to save money. This year is especially important as the October 1st shift-of-liability date has long passed. The longer small businesses put off transitioning to the newer, more secure payment methods, the more likely they will be to incur the cost of fraudulent transactions. I would encourage all business owners to give Lisa York of Beacon Payments a call at 618-514-2565 to discuss their options as well as get a free review of their current credit card processing costs.

As a technology consultant, one of my responsibilities is helping my clients save money on their technology implementations. Additionally, I look for ways they can save money or improve the quality of services that impact their technology. One critically important service that directly impacts a company’s technology is the electricity coming into their building. Often overlooked, it should be obvious that without power, most technologies aren’t going to function. Yet many business owners do not realize that they may be able to save money on their power bills by reviewing the offerings of many competing power companies. As many businesses do their end-of-year reviews, this is a great time to find out if savings are possible on the electricity that powers their company and technology. However, this process can be time-consuming and frustrating if business owners try to tackle it on their own. So it is important to find someone who knows the power supply industry to help them.

Energy “deregulation” is the reason that people in many states can now shop around for their power suppliers. It used to be that we had no choice on where we purchased our power. But depending on the state one lives is, energy has been deregulated for several years now. However, many people don’t realize what energy deregulation is and what it can save them. Or they have been inundated with calls from salespeople trying to get them to switch their energy supplier and they are confused on how to proceed. Luckily, I know the man who wrote the book on energy deregulation – yes, he literally wrote a book about energy deregulation.

Mike Grimes of Commercial Energy Consultants is the go-to person when it comes to saving money on your power bill. Using his vast knowledge of the power supply industry, he will research over 30 companies to find you the best price for your energy needs. The key to saving money on your power, as Mike explains, is to lock in your price when you get a good rate, as prices tend to fluctuate over time. Unfortunately, a lot of people who have taken advantage of deregulation over the last few years did not lock in their rates and are now paying more as companies have incrementally raised their rates. The bottom line is that even if you think you have a good rate, you really don’t know until you’ve had your bill reviewed and energy rates compared with competing companies. So whether you’ve ever deregulated or not, it never hurts to have your power bill reviewed for free by Commercial Energy Consultants.

Again, as you review your business plans for the upcoming year, do not forget to consider your power bill as a source of savings. Give Mike Grimes a call at 877-212-1400 or take a look at this web site trycec.com. Tell him you read about him on my blog and he’ll be sure to take great care of you and your business’ power needs.

Update: As of April 2016, AMD has finally released an updated Radeon Boot Camp driver for the 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 15″ and similar iMac Retina models. This updated driver fully supports Rainbow Six Siege and other new games. I recommend you use this supported driver at this time. However, the steps described below should still work if you want to make sure you have the latest and greatest unsupported driver from AMD for your Radeon R9-based Mac. Additionally, if you read the comments there are now a couple of sites that claim they have pre-packaged modified drivers available. I’ve not yet tested them, so proceed at your own risk.

Update 2: As of October 2016, AMD and Apple have yet to release an updated Radeon driver since April. I have just used the process in this article to update to version 16.9.2 of the Radeon drivers to verify it still works correctly. I wish AMD and Apple would update their official drivers more frequently, but at least we still have an option to update unofficially on our own.

If you purchased a MacBook Pro Retina 15″ model this year after late May, you may have purchased the model with the AMD Radeon R9 M370X discrete graphics processor. For those of us who run Windows through Boot Camp on this Mac, keeping the graphics driver updated is a little bit of a chore. It seems that AMD (maybe at Apple’s behest?) is not supporting the Radeon R9 M370X GPU in this MacBook Pro with their standard Radeon driver updates. Instead, this GPU will only run specific Boot Camp drivers that you can download from AMD’s site or through Apple’s Software Update utility.

The last time these drivers were updated was September 21st. Now that it is early December, these drivers are a little over two months old. For most people, that really isn’t much of an issue. Unfortunately, for those of us that like to play games through Boot Camp on our Macs, these drivers are a little long in the tooth. Specifically, if you are trying to play the recent release of Rainbow Six Siege on a MacBook Pro Retina 15″ Mid-2015 model, you will have noticed significant graphical glitching as this video demonstrates:

As the video states, it turns out the fix is to simply update to the latest Radeon graphic drivers. This normally would be a no-brainer easy fix, except that I stated above we MacBook Pro Retina owners who have the AMD Radeon R9 M370X can not update our drivers past the official September 21st release. I did a lot of research and found no solutions available. This is very infuriating, as I was fairly confident that AMD’s latest release probably would work on this GPU as it was part of a family of processors that pretty much use the same drivers. It is only because AMD specifically excludes the Radeon R9 M370X GPU from their driver installer that we are left out. If there was only a way to force the drivers to install, I felt I could make it work.

To make a long story short, after some research and experimentation, I have discovered a way to unofficially update the Radeon R9 M370X driver on a MacBook Pro Retina 15″ Mid-2015 to the latest version, fixing the issue with Rainbow Six Siege. Simply follow the instructions below and if you’re in the same boat as I was, you’ll find this to be a workable life vest until AMD and Apple release their next official driver release.

A Few Words of Warning

Obviously this is procedure is completely unsupported by Apple or AMD. While I do not think this procedure should cause any significant problems for your Windows installation or your Mac, installing this unsupported driver is completely at your own risk. If your Windows operating system crashes or your Mac blows up, it’s all on you. Apple or AMD will be of no help and will likely admonish you for trying something you read on the Internet. Additionally, I’ve only tested this on Windows 10 64-bit. In theory the core of this procedure should also work for Windows 8.1, but I’ve not tested that and will likely not ever test it myself. So far in testing my Boot Camp installation and Rainbow Six Siege for a few hours, almost everything seems fine. The only issue I’ve uncovered is that the screen brightness controls don’t work. There may be some other glitches lurking, but I’ve not suffered them yet. However, for me this is an acceptable trade-off, as I pretty much only use Boot Camp to do various Windows testing and play Windows games. However, if you are not going to play Rainbow Six Siege and you otherwise have no issues with your current Boot Camp installation, I would not advise following this procedure. Just be patient and wait for the next official Boot Camp graphic driver release.

Anyway, with no further ado, here is how to unofficially update the Windows 10 64-bit Boot Camp Radeon driver in a MacBook Pro Retina 15″ Mid 2015.

• Download the latest Radeon drivers for R9 300 Series from this page: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+10+-+64
• Run the installer. It will fail with “We are unable to find a driver for your system. No supported AMD hardware was detected.” However, it will have copied the necessary installation files to your drive.
• Edit the following file, noting that the path and INF filename will be slightly different for newer versions of the driver:

  C:\AMD\Radeon-Crimson-15.11-Win10-64Bit\Packages\Drivers\Display\WT6A_INF\C0296567.INF

• Put a semicolon ; in front of the following line or lines (there will be at least one, but maybe 2 or more)

  ExcludeID=PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6821&SUBSYS_0149106B

• Save the file.
• The line(s) above serve to exclude installing the Radeon driver for this specific GPU. A semicolon serves to mark the line as a comment, disabling the exclusion. This would normally be enough to force the driver to install on an unsupported system. However, it turns out that the driver is not digitally signed and Windows 10 64-bit by default will not install unsigned drivers. So we must disable driver signature enforcement first. Instead of detailing all the steps here, please read the following article if you do not know how to do this yourself. http://www.howtogeek.com/167723/how-to-disable-driver-signature-verification-on-64-bit-windows-8.1-so-that-you-can-install-unsigned-drivers/
• Once the computer has rebooted after you have disabled driver signature enforcement, follow the steps below that I have included screenshots for:

Now that the driver is updated, you should be able to run Rainbow Six Siege without the graphical glitches we had to suffer with earlier. Please be sure to keep your head down, look around those corners, and watch your teammates backs!

Hopefully this procedure helps you if you own a MacBook Pro Retina 15″ Mid-2015 with AMD Radeon R9 M370X GPU. I believe that some recent iMac owners with a similar AMD Radeon GPU may also suffer from the same problem. In theory, this general procedure should also work if we can identify which “ExcludeID” line should be commented out. For all I know, it might be the exact same line, but it is likely a different one. If you have a recent iMac with an AMD Radeon GPU, let me know if you want me to help you out. Also please comment below if this procedure helped you out!

I recently wrote an article offering a tip that helps people find out if their healthcare providers are adequately protecting their medical records. Protecting patient data is required by the law known as HIPAA. Unfortunately, many medical practices are not doing enough to protect their patients’ data. This is understandable as it is not easy, especially for small medical offices, to even understand all the many and varied aspects of HIPAA, let alone ensure compliance. However, criminals are becoming wise to the fact that small medical providers are an easy target for data breaches and even a small doctor’s office can provide a big payday for information criminals. So what is a medical practice to do?

As a technology consultant, I get a lot of questions regarding HIPAA compliance from my clients. While I can offer advice on specific technology implementations that can help a provider become compliant, there is a lot more to HIPAA than just technology. There are many polices and procedures that must be developed and enforced in order for a medical provider to adequately protect their patients’ data and comply with HIPAA. Fortunately for me, I was lucky enough to meet Jim Moore, a certified HIPAA professional with over 30 years of experience in healthcare practice consulting. I am partnering with Mr. Moore and his company, Compliance by the Quarter, to help my medical practice clients get and stay in compliance with HIPAA and adequately protect the medical records of their patients.

One piece of advice shared by Mr. Moore is that HIPAA requires every medical practice to retain a “privacy officer.” A privacy officer is in charge of creating and enforcing patient privacy protection policies and practices. However, while this privacy officer could be anyone on staff, including the doctor or medical provider, this position can actually be outsourced. Most doctors and their staffs are already overburdened enough as it is. By outsourcing their HIPAA privacy officer to a company like Compliance by the Quarter, medical practices can greatly simplify the work required to adequately protect their patients’ medical information and comply with HIPAA.

Many healthcare professionals are not aware that a single violation of HIPAA can cause them to be fined as much as $50,000. Hiring a HIPAA professional like Jim Moore and outsourcing the role of HIPAA privacy officer can ensure you are protecting your patients’ medical information and significantly reduce the risk of such devastating fines. If you are a healthcare provider and would like to ensure that you are compliant with HIPAA, both from a technology and procedural standpoint, please contact me here, or feel free to contact Mr. Jim Moore at his company’s web site.

Do you know if your doctor or medical provider is adequately protecting your private medical information? Do you even know what questions to ask in order to find out? Fortunately, there is one simple question you can ask your doctor, dentist, chiropractor, or any other medical provider to gauge how seriously they take patient privacy. I will share this question at the end of the article, but first, you should understand just how valuable your medical records are to criminals and why you are at real risk.

As a technology consultant, I have taken many questions from my medical clients regarding compliance with HIPAA, the federal law that among many things, requires the protection of patient medical records. Given that technology is integral to medical record keeping, it isn’t surprising that my clients are asking me for advice. Unfortunately, I have not studied the pages upon pages of legalese that the HIPAA law and its various amendments encompass nor am I qualified to offer advice on legal matters. So while I can offer advice on specific technologies that can help with HIPAA compliance, it is ultimately the responsibility of the medical provider to ensure that they are protecting the medical information for their patients. There are many other factors to HIPAA compliance than just technology and I understand the frustration many of my clients feel when dealing with such a enormous law that in many cases is vague and unclear.

Regardless of HIPAA, the fact is that your medical records are extremely valuable commodities to information criminals. Protecting our medical records should be a priority for all of us. Unfortunately, most people have no idea just how valuable their medical information can be so they make no effort in talking to their medial providers regarding the provider’s patient privacy practices. Additionally, even many medical providers have no idea how valuable this information can be and it puts their patients at risk of a data breach.

Many small medical practices think they are safe because they believe criminals aren’t likely to bother with them. However, according to Jim Moore, certified HIPAA professional and a 30-year veteran in healthcare practice consulting, criminals are in fact targeting small practices because they realize that many small medical providers are lax on their patient privacy practices. He says that given the high value of even one person’s set of medical records, a data breach at even a small town medical practice can be a windfall for criminals. Worse yet, because they think they are not targets, many small medical practices are willfully ignoring HIPAA and not implementing strong patient privacy protections.

As a patient, our medical providers ask us to sign “HIPAA forms.” Many patients think that is all that is necessary for a practice to be HIPAA compliant! If one were to ask their medical provider if they are HIPAA compliant, most would probably answer that they are. This is not because the medical provider is being dishonest, but because the HIPAA law is so broad many providers only have a rudimentary knowledge of what is actually required for compliance. So instead of asking if your provider is HIPAA compliant, you should ask instead to speak to their “privacy officer.” HIPAA requires every single healthcare office to have a privacy officer, whose responsibility it is to create and enforce patient privacy protection policies and practices. If your medical provider does not know what a privacy officer is or does not claim to have one, this is probably a solid sign that the office is not actually HIPAA compliant and likely does not have adequate privacy protection practices. This is also a great question to ask potential medical providers BEFORE you become their patient. If the practice does in fact have a privacy officer that’s good news. The acting privacy officer can be the doctor themselves, but more likely one of their staff, or even an outsourced provider. You can then ask the privacy officer if they have some sort of certification to prove they are HIPAA compliant or have them explain to you what steps they take to ensure your medical records are secure. Hopefully they provide answers that make you trust their competence. However, if your provider does not have a privacy officer, or if their answers to their patient privacy practices are not satisfactory, it is up to you if you choose to continue to remain a patient or find a medical practice that does adequately protect their patients’ private data.

A special thanks to Jim Moore, certified HIPAA professional, for much of the information in this article. Additionally he has offered to answer any questions you may have regarding the protection of your medical records. If you have any questions about this article, please feel free to comment below.

It’s that time of year: the weather is getting cooler, the leaves are changing, and Apple is releasing a new iOS and new iPhones. I’ve written a couple of articles in the past that help people get ready to upgrade to a new iOS and get ready to transfer all their stuff to a new iPhone. I went back and re-read those articles and found that they still apply to this years’ upgrades. So if you want to upgrade your old iPhone or iPad to iOS 9, or you want to get your current iPhone ready to transfer to a new iPhone, feel free to read the following articles, keeping in mind they were written in years past. Then when you’ve read them, if you have any questions, please feel free to post them on my new Question and Answer section of my web site.

iOS Download too Big? Use iTunes Instead

Buying a New iPhone? Backup Your Old One First!

Last week Apple held their now-traditional fall event where they unveiled their latest iPhones. However, Apple also unveiled two other major device updates that you should pay attention to as we enter the holiday gift-giving season. To help you out, I will summarize Apple’s major announcements.

iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus

As expected, Apple introduced their latest iPhones approximately one year after their previous models. The iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus look virtually identical to their previous generation counterparts and reports indicate that most cases designed for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will work with the newer generation iPhones. Besides a significantly more powerful processor and some other underlying technology upgrades, the main change to the 6S line of iPhones will be the addition of what Apple is calling “3D Touch,” which basically means the new iPhones will respond to how hard you press the iPhone’s screen, not just a simple tap. This should make the iPhone a lot more productive for users who are very familiar with their iPhones, while not making the overall usage more complicated for new users. The other notable features for the new iPhones will be a higher megapixel camera that will also take pictures that can be “brought to life”, as the camera will capture frames from just before and just after the picture is snapped, giving the illusion of movement to a picture. Apple is calling this “Live Photo” and because users will not need to do anything different besides just taking a picture, I think it will be a popular feature.

iPad Pro

Apple unveiled a new addition to their iPad lineup: the iPad Pro. Simply put the iPad Pro is a larger sized iPad as compared to the smallest iPad Mini and now mid-sized iPad Air. However, the iPad Pro will also work with a couple of new accessories, the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard to give it the ability to be more of a tablet/laptop hybrid device. For those who wanted a larger screen iPad, the iPad Pro will fit the bill and it will also satisfy those who wanted an iPad that was more similar to a laptop for their work needs. Creative professionals will almost certainly be big fans of the Apple Pencil, as it is basically a very precise drawing stylus.

Apple TV

Apple also unveiled a long-awaited update to their Apple TV device. The new Apple TV can now be controlled through Siri-based voice commands and a new motion-sensitive remote control. The motion sensitive remote control is a key feature because it works very similar to a Nintendo Wii controller, which is perfect for playing games (or using Apps) that can be purchased through the new Apple TV App Store. It appears that many App developers will also allow you to download the Apple TV version of their Apps if you’ve already purchased them on the iPhone or iPad. Plus now that any developer can create Apps for the Apple TV, it is conceivable that more streaming services will become available for Apple TV (although most of the major ones already were). The more powerful the Apple TV can become as a platform for Apps, games, and streaming services the closer the market moves away from the established cable and satellite companies towards a la carte services.

Apple Watch

Apple really didn’t announce anything major for the Apple Watch, besides reminding us that the new Watch OS 2.0 will be released on September 16th (which is a big deal for those who already own the Apple Watch) and introducing some new color and watch band availability. However, I mention the Apple Watch here because it very well may be one of the hottest, if not THE hottest, technology gifts of the year. The bottom line for the Apple Watch is that there are so many choices in colors and watch bands that this is a much more complicated purchase as a gift than most technology devices. So start your planning now and if you have people who are interested in the Apple Watch as a gift, you may need to do creative questioning to find out exactly which model and color combination they want.

Questions?

If you a question about these new Apple devices or any other technology product, please feel free to post it to my new Question & Answer section of my web site. I’ll be happy to help answer your questions and every question posted may help someone else.