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Small Biz Mac, This blog focuses on using Mac as the foundation of a small business--the operating platform, the market, and more. This blog will discuss both the challenges of operating a business on Mac hardware and software, and the impact of the broader Mac market on business.
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Kevin Walzer and Lori Jareo, publishers, software developers, Mac/iPhone users, and small business owners.
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This past January, the plan was to utilize a virtual private network from PureVPN to help support the connectivity needs for our small book-distribution business. The need was two-fold: inside and outside connectivity. After repeated failures to keep the business, particularly our web pages, connected to the outside world, the decision was made to use it only for internal connectivity needs between several computers, including one server and an older MacBook Pro. That quite didn't work out either, so two weeks ago PureVPN was replaced with a different VPN service, NordVPN.
In early November 2022, a one-year subscription plan for basic service was purchased from PureVPN for US$80.83 that included a static IP address. Connectivity problems began soon after installation, and thus a static IP address was soon purchased from altafiber (formerly known as Cincinnati Bell) for US$30 each month to remedy the outside connectivity problems. This scheme has worked well. PureVPN would be used only for internal connectivity.
Internal connectivity with PureVPN did not work as planned, either. PureVPN would simply not stay connected. There was difficulty in simply making a connection; the company's Stateside servers were often busy. Other times, there was no apparent reason why the service could not connect. Connection was spotty on a MacBook Pro purchased new from Apple in December 2022; connection was poor on a 2017 MacBook Pro.
In early April, NordVPN was substituted for PureVPN. The price for a basic, one-year subscription was US$68.85. That price-point comes with the secure, high-speed VPN service; malware protection, and the tracker- and ad-blocker. We are not getting the cross-platform password manager, the data-breach scanner, the 1TB cloud storage, nor the "next-generation" file encryption. NordVPN could not provide the static IP address that we needed; however, internal connectivity issues vanished--even with the six-year-old MacBook. Not one disconnection occurred in the two weeks the computer has been used with NordVPN.
At its core, according to Wikipedia, a virtual private network is supposed to "establish a virtual point-to-point connection through the use of tunneling protocols [encryption] over existing networks." To do that, a VPN user connects to a remote server where the data-protection happens. Nothing will work without access to the remote server. NordVPN stays connected to its server, apparently based in Chicago. After replacing the 2017 MacBook Pro with a MacBook Air utilizing a Macintosh hard drive, an M2 chip, 16 GB memory on Ventura 13.2.1 operating system, the Internet is faster than ever.
A lot of YouTubers are paid to promote NordVPN on their channels. We were intrigued when a credentialed YouTube historian became a paid endorser, and often checked out the website. When our previous VPN failed, it was the first place we went to begin shopping for a new service. NordVPN is easy to use and is competitively priced. Except for our iPhones, now all of our devices from our server to our iPad utilize this VPN service.
