Have you ever heard of the Uncanny Valley? It’s the theory that explains why the human race tends to prefer humanoid robots, but only up to a point, after which we find them unsettling. It’s one reason why so many people found the 2019 film Cats bothersome to watch. The Uncanny Valley has also been present in film in recent years, especially when actors who have passed are recreated digitally to make an appearance, or when talent needs to look older or younger than they are.
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It’s the holiday season, and you know what that means: lots of gift-giving and online shopping. Regardless of what you and your family celebrate this holiday season, you should be prepared to handle the influx of phishing attacks which always surface around this time every year, including both the usual methods and the more sophisticated ones.
Today’s businesses need to be prepared for threats of all kinds…that’s unfortunately just fact. Modern cyberattacks are not only getting more effective, they’re also able to be a lot less discerning about who they target. This creates exponentially more risk for businesses of all sizes. Let’s go over how you can develop a cybersecurity strategy that helps temper this risk a bit.
How often have you been browsing the web on your phone, only to find something that would be legitimately useful for your work—maybe it was a tip you wanted to try out, or a bit of information that would be helpful to know—so you wanted to be able to access it from your workstation? There’s actually a very easy way to make this happen, thanks to the multi-platform nature of the Google Chrome browser.
The holiday season is getting busier and busier every year and with less and less time afforded to shopping and getting ready for the holiday, you may have overlooked that special someone on your holiday shopping list. This week, we give you three gadgets that would be really nice last minute gifts for that technology lover in your life
Let me ask you a question: how much did you pay Google for your Business Profile? Unfortunately, if the answer was anything other than “nothing,” you’ve been scammed. Google has actually announced that they are taking legal action against scammers who impersonated the company in order to defraud small businesses.
With technology playing such a massive role in modern business processes, having someone in the higher ranks to oversee it is a huge advantage. This is the role of the Chief Information Officer—the CIO—which makes them an integral part of the modern C-suite.
So, what kind of thing does the CIO (or your business’ equivalent of it) need to know and consider in order to fulfill their role?
Have you ever found yourself in a position where you wanted to download an email from your inbox? Whether it’s documentation or a different reason, there is a way to download your messages into a PDF. PDFs make for great file-sharing formats, as the document type preserves formatting and makes editing difficult, preserving authenticity. Let’s go over how you can download an email from your Outlook inbox as a PDF.
Hot desking—the workplace organization method wherein there are no assigned workstations—has an assortment of pros and cons to it, but many companies are finding the more fiscal benefits to be worth the trade-offs. Let’s explore some of the pros and cons of hot desking, and go over a few tips and strategies that will help if you choose to implement it.
If your business uses Google Apps, then there is a good chance that you have some sort of integration set up with other services. If you grant permissions to other applications or programs to access and use Google Drive, you should know that you have some power over these permissions, and it’s incredibly important that you understand what permissions you are granting.
There’s no denying that the economic forecast at the moment is a bit bleak, with murmurings of a recession growing louder by the day. As this situation develops, many companies are likely seeking out opportunities to trim the fat. Despite this, however, we anticipate that artificial intelligence will actually see a bit of an uptick. Let’s go over why.
For millions of people, the rubber ducky is a benign reminder of childhood. Depending on when you were a child, the rendition of Sesame Street’s Ernie singing “Rubber Duckie, you’re the one,” is ingrained in your mind every time you hear the term. Unfortunately, the Rubber Ducky we are going to tell you about today has only fond recollection for people who are looking to breach networks they aren’t authorized to access or deliver malware payloads that are designed to cause havoc.
Who are you? While it’s a question that’s been asked in all contexts with all levels of metaphysicality attached—from asking someone their name to prompting someone to follow a path of spiritual self-discovery—the growth of the metaverse once again urges us to ask it in a more literal way. When accessing a conglomeration of various services and platforms, how many identities will each user need to juggle?
It’s easy to open up far more tabs on your web browser than you need, especially when so many tools are cloud-based. If you find yourself in need of a quick way to close all other tabs besides a handful or so, we’ve got just the tip for you. You can close all open tabs to the right of your preferred window, or you can close all tabs outright.
QR codes have cemented themselves as one of the most common technologies used to direct people to important resources or information about goods or services provided by an organization or company. You see them on menus in restaurants, instruction booklets, and even on business cards. How can you make QR codes for your business?
Regularly, when a business is searching for ways to move their operations forward, there is a little hand wringing on how to do so. Every decision your business has to make comes with a price tag, and the more that you can do without spending a lot of money, the more value you are going to see. For this week’s blog, we thought we’d take a look at some actions you can take with your technology to ensure that your business is going in the right direction.
Modern spreadsheet programs, like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, carry a plethora of functions under the surface that—if used correctly—can take their utility to another level. For instance, the cells in your spreadsheets can be turned into dropdown menus. Let’s go over how to do so in both Excel and Sheets.
If you truly want to run your business effectively, it all starts with understanding how its costs break down. If you are armed with this knowledge, you can make better decisions about solution procurement and operations management. Let’s examine how you can cut costs without harming your business in the process.
I’m talking about when the heir to the Nigerian throne would reach out to your Hotmail account to help him secure his inheritance, or when an attractive woman or man you’ve never met before would email you out of the blue asking if you were single; spam has always been annoying, but back then, it was clearly just junk that could be ignored.
Today, it’s not so simple.
Last time, we started our discussion on the best search engines by talking about the behemoth, Google. While Google is, by far, the most popular and commonly used, and arguably the most accurate search engine, it doesn’t mean it’s always the right search engine to use. Let’s talk about some other alternatives and see where they might fit in.
For years, IT has been at the forefront of business administration, productivity, communications, and many other parts of an organization's efficient operations. For the growing business it can be rather difficult to know where to invest your capital so that you can get the best ROI or the most value out of your IT investments. Let’s take a look at how the growing business can use their earmarked capital to improve their business.
Today’s business takes effort that extends beyond traditional ways of doing things, and technology is at the center of these efforts. One of the avenues that businesses are using right now to boost productivity is by allowing workers to use the mobility they use in their everyday life. Today, we’ll discuss how added mobility can help bring surprising boosts of productivity.
For the average business, the database plays a big role. How big of a role? Your business won’t function the way you want it to function without it. In order to manage your databases correctly, you need a solid database management system (DBMS). This week, we thought we would discuss the DBMS and how it works to assist your business computing.
The metaverse is a buzzword that many companies have been throwing around in recent years, but what is it, exactly? You might want to sit down for this one, as it is going to get a little complicated and, perhaps, even a bit confusing. We’ll do our best to unpack what the metaverse is, why there is such an emphasis on it these days, and what you might expect to see from a metaverse in the future.
Organizations come in all sizes and with it, there are all different ways of conducting business. Some companies choose to spend more time and money on their organization’s IT than others do. This month, we thought we would briefly go through four different tiers of technology investment and what they mean for your business.
Every business has different types of workers; often to management’s chagrin. Ideally, all of an organization’s workers would be enthusiastic about their jobs and the status of a business as a whole. Unfortunately, people don’t always have like minds about the state of things and can see their morale reduced and their productivity wane.
We aren’t going to try and pretend that the investments necessary to preserve your business’ data security are small ones. Especially at first glance, you may very well start to question if such an investment is truly necessary.
The simple fact of the matter is that, compared to the costs that a breach of privacy will incur, the investment you put into your security measures will suddenly seem like a real bargain.
It probably isn’t a question you’ve put much thought to, but tell me: who do you think feels the greatest impact from card skimming schemes, where a payment card’s data is captured so a cybercriminal can make use of the card’s associated account? While it isn’t a good situation for anyone, some are impacted more than others.
Have you ever gotten a message that just makes your heart sink in your chest? Like, your dread piques the moment you see it? Chances are pretty good that your team members feel that way whenever you send them a particular message, particularly during certain times. Let’s consider why this may be the case, and how you can better manage your communications to more effectively communicate with your team.
Every piece of technology we regularly use today was once earth-shakingly innovative, regardless of how mundane and common it seems to us now. Think about it: people once had endless questions about the Internet, about computers…even about electricity. Let’s consider some modern innovations that we have many questions about now, but may someday be just as much of a given as the other tools we so commonly use today.
Even though the modern workplace tends to be PC-centric, Apple has had a major impact on technology and computing. It’s undeniable that Apple is pretty consistent with producing sleek, high-end hardware and efficient operating systems. Apple’s former CEO, Steve Jobs, was known to be a visionary and a perfectionist. That’s what makes this story even weirder.
How many of your employees do you think hold a second job? This isn’t a particularly outlandish concept, but one thing that has come about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and its surge of remote work is that some employees hold two jobs at the same time, and not in the way that you might expect.
The holidays are fast approaching and that means people are going to miss work for one reason or another. If you can get away from the office for a little bit, you’ll want to set up an out-of-office message to ensure that others know you will get back to them when you get back to the office. Here’s how you can set up an autoresponder for an out-of-office message in Microsoft Outlook.
How often do you receive emails from someone written in another language? We bet the answer is “not often,” but you never know when being able to translate an email might come in handy—especially if you ever do business overseas. Let’s go over the built-in translation functionality that comes with Gmail.
Virtually any type of business needs a website. Whether you are a local restaurant, a one-person CPA, or a busy manufacturer, your website is the proof that your business has a pulse. Like it or not, this will be one of the main conduits your prospective customers and clients will use to find you.
Even if your website is an afterthought, you should consider auditing it and refreshing it at least every couple years. That might not mean a full redesign from the ground up, but it definitely needs to reflect your business and provide your visitors with enough information to take the next steps.
No matter how big your business is, you’ll always have technology expenses. It’s just a fact of the current workplace, and your profits will be inexorably tied to how well your IT works for you. Furthermore, the more IT costs rise, the more impact small and medium-sized businesses will feel from them. Today, we wanted to address this issue and how you can minimize the frustrations that stem from seemingly uncontrollable technology costs.
Do you ever think about how incredible technology is? In a world where it’s easy to take advantage of technology and devices that were practically inconceivable just a few short decades ago, it’s really amazing to just look at how far we’ve come, and how something so small can fit so much information.
WhatsApp is one of the world’s most popular messaging applications. With over 2 billion users, WhatsApp is known for its relative security, as it is one of the few messaging applications that offers end-to-end encryption. A modified version of WhatsApp, called YoWhatsApp, has been reportedly deploying malware.
How often does this scenario happen to you? You’re going about your workday and are being quite productive, when all of a sudden you close the wrong tab in your web browser, putting an end to your productivity. This isn’t crippling downtime or anything, but it’s an inconvenience that we know you can do without. Thankfully, modern web browsers let you reopen closed tabs or windows to get back to where you left off.
If Edgar Allan Poe worked in an office, here’s what one of his works would sound like:
True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I have been and am, but why will you say that I am mad? The office had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was my sense of hearing. I heard all things in heaven and on earth and many things in…the other place. So, how then am I mad, especially when I can so healthily and calmly tell you this story?
With so many different technologies being used in business, it can sometimes be too much for the people out there who aren’t as tech-savvy as others. In fact, some of the people you will work alongside will not be able to grasp some of the simplest technology concepts. Unfortunately, these people don’t know a fraction of what they need to know about the technology they use, and it could put your organization at a disadvantage. This month, we thought we’d give you a few pointers on how to talk to your coworkers who aren’t as knowledgeable as you are in technology or any other field.
We hate to be the bad guy, but we’re certain that you cannot multitask nearly as well as you think you can. Multitasking is just not how the human brain works, and whether or not you believe in the psychology of it, we think you stand to benefit by outsourcing some of the tasks on your plate to a managed service provider.
When it comes to your business’ cybersecurity, it can be too tempting to operate under the assumption that the few cybersecurity events you hear about on the news are all that happen. Unfortunately, this is far from actual fact. Let’s review some of the statistics that might change your impressions, especially if you hold the aforementioned assumption.
How Many of These Devices are in Your Office?
The more complex your technology is, the more secure you need to be. If it connects to the Internet, it needs to be hardened to prevent unauthorized access. Virtually any device can be an entrypoint for a cybercriminal or malicious software, but if you have any of these devices in your office, you need to take serious precautions when it comes to your security.
With the digitalization of the modern business happening rather rapidly, many organizations still don’t really understand the major benefits that come with it. These shifts give the average business nearly twice the amount of data to manage (and to use). If you have the feeling that your business is lagging behind in this area, we will describe what parts of business you can improve by utilizing your organization’s data.
Artificially-intelligent image generation has become a hot topic in recent weeks and months. Not too long ago, an artist created a stir for winning a competition with an image that he largely created using an artificially-intelligent tool. Now, Microsoft has announced that similar AI-powered image generation tools will be integrated into many of their applications.
Manufacturers have long been at the forefront of technology. Today, this trend continues, but with new, innovative tools that are designed to make business more efficient and workers more productive. This technology has helped much of the manufacturing sector despite costs continually rising, supply chain interruptions, and other variables. Let’s take a look at some of the major technology changes that have fueled manufacturers during the past few years.
Nowadays, the better your employees collaborate, the better your offering is going to be. This means getting the collaboration tools needed to make it simple for your staff to work together to create something great is critical. This month, we take a minute to discuss some of the problems businesses have with collaboration and how you can circumvent these challenges.
For small businesses, having a fast, reliable Internet connection is needed to run all the digital tools that your staff has come to depend on. If you don’t have the bandwidth in place, you can deal with bottlenecks that can ruin communications, stall productivity, and cause operational issues of all types. Today, we’ll take a look at how to determine the amount of bandwidth you need to support your business’ computing infrastructure.
As Miguel de Cervantes wrote in Don Quixote, “...is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket.” It was wise advice then, and it’s wise advice now—especially when it comes to your business’ network and your data security.
Let’s explore the concept of network segmentation, and how it can help to protect your business.
Businesses often need to add and remove technology to fit their needs, and most of the time these actions make a marked difference in the way that their organizations are able to do things. One problem you may have is with the identification of the business processes that would be aided by technology investment. Today, we’ll briefly discuss how to best identify your business’ IT goals.
Sometimes the worst scams out there are the simplest ones. Hackers don’t need a fancy or complicated malware or algorithm to create chaos for your organization; all they have to do is convince you that the email you’ve received in your inbox is from someone of authority within your business. Let’s go over how a business email compromise is pulled off and why you need to be wary of threats like these.
Ransomware is one of the more dangerous threats out there today, and since it is so prominent and dangerous, it is a popular choice amongst hackers. To combat this threat, a community has formed around the cause, encouraging users to not pay the ransom by providing free malware removal tools for the most popular ransomware threats.
If your business has five or more computers, or an expensive server, then you need access to a professional who can provide technical support. There is a huge difference between a local guy who can fix a computer and a professional who understands the intricacies of a business network—think of it like asking your pizza delivery guy to serve your entire extended family a Thanksgiving dinner.
It’s a great feeling, being able to download something, but also being able to download it as a PDF file. In cases where you want to save something as a PDF rather than its original image or web page file, you can do so relatively easily in order to make printing and other tasks easier. You can do all of this right from your web browser.
No matter how well you protect your network, chances are you’ll suffer from some vulnerability or another. That said, you can take considerable measures toward protecting your business so you don’t have to worry so much about them. Let’s discuss how your efforts today can protect your business now and in the future.
In today’s business, the demand for software often outpaces the supply of available coders. For businesses that find the need for new applications to drive their business initiatives, there are now “no code” tools available that can help them create the software they need without having to lean on software developers. This week, we take a look at no code tools and how they can work for your business.
While using your computer, you might have seen a black box pop up with a blinking cursor in it. This is what is commonly known as the command prompt. It’s helpful for IT administrators to perform certain tasks, but you probably won’t use it much yourself. That said, it’s fun to know what it does and what it’s used for!
If you’ve made it this far into our series, good for you, you’re on your way to finishing mastering your Google Business Profile. For the last segment of our series, let’s continue our discussion on Google Business profiles and how to really make your profile yours, and how to use it for engagement from your audience!
If you use Android mobile devices, then you’ll know that updating your device is routine maintenance to keep it safe from threats and security breaches. Not only that, but updating your device can resolve various bugs which impact functionality. Let’s go over how you can update your device to the latest version of its operating system.
If you watch technology news, you might notice that there is one day out of every month that gets a lot of attention from the technology sector, and that day is what is called Patch Tuesday. This is the day each month when Microsoft issues all of their patches and security updates, and it’s important to know when this day falls each month—at least, for your IT team it is.
Due to the almost faceless nature of many cybercrime acts, it can be easy to see them as nothing more than the acts themselves, which is of course not true in the slightest. Behind these attacks are people, and where people performing illegal acts are concerned, there will always be concerns about other criminal acts which perpetuate the ones at the surface.
It is a legitimate question whether something is actually art if it isn’t created by a human being. That’s before you are exposed to it, however. In fact, an AI created a piece of art that was crowned the winner at the Colorado State Fair. Let’s take a look at AI art in the context of this competition.
While we typically focus on how various technologies can be used in business applications as a way to boost a small or medium-sized organization’s capabilities, we occasionally come across a topic that is just undeniably cool (and that we can bring back around to business concerns, to boot). We recently heard about the development of a flexible new wearable that uses AI to monitor the health of the wearer that we wanted to discuss with you.
In efforts to curb the semiconductor shortage and jumpstart the technology industry, the United States Congress passed legislation that includes funding for manufacturing semiconductors. Partially in response to China’s increasing economic influence and partially in response to the semiconductor shortage, the CHIPS Act could be just what industry leaders need to kickstart the manufacturing of these important devices.
More businesses than ever before are seeing the value of outsourcing their technology management to a managed service provider (MSP) and it’s easy to see why. With a more hands-off approach to technology management, businesses can focus on delivering quality goods and services instead of worrying about their technology. If you are considering jumping on the MSP wagon, consider asking the following questions to make sure you understand what you are getting from your provider.
How much paper does your office waste on printing, and it’s all because someone printed out a large multi-page document on single-sided paper? It’s very easy to forget to check these settings, but sometimes people don’t even know they exist. Let’s go over how you can print on both sides of the paper and take full advantage of the prime real estate that can be found on the flip-side of your documents.
Technology gets better and more efficient over time, and smartphones are one of today’s standout examples. Although their growth has stagnated a bit in recent years, it’s no small thing to say that smartphone innovation has really taken off, offering extremely fast processors, data storage in the cloud, and so much more. Let’s go over what you might look at when you purchase a new smartphone.
The cloud has helped countless organizations all over the world establish themselves as powerhouses of their industries through dynamic and flexible solutions. One of the biggest reasons why the cloud is so effective—particularly for growing companies—is because of how scalable it is. Let’s examine how this scalability can help your company succeed despite how much it grows.
We’re not shy about sharing how important it is for a business to have comprehensive cybersecurity throughout its entire infrastructure. That’s why we wanted to share what some recent data has shown about the importance of having visibility into your infrastructure.
Spoiler alert: it’s really, really important.
Sad to say, but for the foreseeable future, cost control is going to be the number one priority for almost every business. With the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic still lingering, and revenue streams interrupted, many businesses are still being extremely cautious with their capital. One place where most businesses can cut back is on printing. Let’s discuss how to cut your organization’s printing costs.
Communications are critical for businesses of all sizes, including small businesses and their telephone systems. While the technology likely still plays some role in your office, other means of communication have likely come to the forefront. In some ways, the traditional telephone has been left behind…with Voice over Internet Protocol largely taking its place.
At first glance, cybersecurity might seem incredibly complicated and difficult to understand, but even a baseline understanding of some of the principles of cybersecurity can go a long way toward protecting your business. Let’s discuss some of the common-sense ways you can keep your business secure, even if you don’t have an internal IT department to ask for help from.
No business owner wants to deal with potential lawsuits, but over the last few years several companies have been constructed for the sole purpose of crawling the web and finding businesses to send copyright claims to. While copyright laws are important, these businesses aren’t looking to defend the sanctity of intellectual property, they are predators trying to squeeze a little money out of small businesses like yours.
For all the events that have made business more difficult over the past several years, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that businesses have been more open to change the way they do things if it means that they can meet the demands placed on them by the market. These days, there are some technologies that will be a big part of business headed forward, but you may think that they are out of your business’ price range. Think again. Let’s take a look at three robust technologies and how you can use them in your business.
Even if mobile malware doesn’t have nearly as much of a presence in the cyber threat landscape as other major threats like ransomware variants, it is still just as dangerous under the right circumstances. An Android banking malware called Sova, for example, has returned with a vengeance with additional features to make users’ lives miserable.
Mobile devices have changed the world. They’ve definitely changed the way people do business. The prevailing sentiment is smartphone innovation has stagnated a bit over the past few years as most of the flagship smartphones are using extremely fast processors, data storage has moved to the cloud, and many other factors. Just look at the new iPhone, which traditionally looks just like the last iPhone. Today, we’ll take a look at what you need to know when buying your new phone.
Most business owners are looking for a way to cut their costs. One way that many firms can see some cost reduction is to increase productivity through solid collaboration. Today, there are many digital tools designed to get more eyes on a project, but they may not completely fit your strategy. Let’s look at some strategies that are used to promote collaboration, and some tools that can fuel these enhanced collaborative efforts.
In business, experience is always useful. Nowhere is that more apparent than when managing your organization’s IT infrastructure. The problem is that acquiring the expertise to do just that can be quite confusing for most business owners. Today, we’ll talk about how technology management experience can produce better business from one end to the other.
Look, we get it: remote work has become a bit of a topic of contention lately. While employees have been relishing the benefits that remote work offers them, many employers have been doing everything they can to bring their workforce back into the workplace.
Now, it wouldn’t be unfair for you to assume that we would push remote work as a managed service provider because we just so happen to assist businesses in managing it as a part of our services. This is true enough…but we aren’t the only ones with an opinion on the topic.