Directive Blogs

Both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets offer a plethora of features to those who know how to use them, many of them with really niche applications to businesses. For instance, there is one function that allows you to easily calculate the time between the current date and a specified  day that, if applied properly, could easily provide businesses with some serious utility.

Business technology has grown so much over time that it’s practically unrecognizable compared to some of the original solutions. The Internet of Things has given businesses more opportunities to automate processes and build efficiency into their IT infrastructure, and in more ways than one. Let’s look at how businesses use the Internet of Things and what you might accomplish with it.

Phishing attacks have consistently been prominent in cybercrime throughout the past few years, not only due to their efficacy but also because there are so many avenues wherein phishing can be attempted. The first that comes to mind is email, of course, but you and your team need to keep these others in mind.

Take, for instance, a phishing voicemail…dubbed, naturally, a “phoicemail.”

More than ever, it is important for your employees to have positive work experiences. People have many more resources to find new work today, and with so many people willing to find the “right fit” it can be quite expensive for organizations. While the best way is always to compensate people well, if you are facing a situation where you need to be creative to keep your people around, we have three suggestions. 

Wi-Fi connectivity is a remarkable technology when you really think about it, and it has fundamentally changed how we work today. What hasn’t changed, unfortunately, is that hackers and cybercriminals will try to use this technology to their own advantage. Therefore, let’s discuss a few relatively simple ways that you can improve your wireless network’s overall security.

Phishing is a remarkably dangerous tactic used by hackers to take advantage of those who might not be quite as in-the-know about security practices. Phishing attacks can be carried out against both businesses and individuals alike, and due to the many different forms these attacks can take—including email, text message, and even fraudulent websites—they can be quite problematic.

Let’s go over how you can train your team to avoid phishing attacks and how to appropriately respond to them when they are inevitably encountered.

Software makes or breaks businesses, so your software strategy should be implemented with sound logic in mind. One of the ways you can make the most out of your limited resources and budget is to consider cloud-hosted Software as a Service offerings. With SaaS, you can implement better software that is more accessible, flexible, and manageable than the traditional method of hosting.

Email remains a cornerstone in business communications, often containing sensitive information and other data that really needs to be protected. Fortunately, modern email platforms often enable you to add a little bit of protection, so long as you know what the process looks like. 

Let’s go over how you can make your emails just that much more secure.

Mobile utilization in business has been on the rise for quite some time and today’s business has to stop and confront the issues that come along with it before they become problems. Like any technology that people have come to rely on outside of their job, a business’ first consideration is how to make use of it for business as well. This month, we thought we would take a look at some of the pain points organizations can experience when managing their mobile devices.

The Internet is used for a great many things in business nowadays, but some may not realize just how much Internet speeds have changed over time. This week, we thought we would take a brief look at the evolution of Internet speeds and what today’s speeds allow businesses to do. 

Regardless of your industry, there are going to be certain regulatory standards that you will be responsible for upholding. Many of these standards will be related in some way to your cybersecurity. Let’s talk about some of these cybersecurity standards, and why compliance is so critical for your business.

Good time management leads to improved productivity. Simple in concept, but for many, the execution isn’t nearly so simple. We wanted to share a few ways that you can help encourage your team to be more productive by enacting certain policies.

The landscape of telephony for small businesses has changed dramatically. It’s likely that you don’t rely on your phone nearly as much as you rely on other technologies, like your Internet, communications solutions, and email. Still, an antiquated phone system can hold you back, so let’s explore the other viable option for your business: Voice over IP.

Critical thinking skills are universally useful to have, particularly in the business setting, and especially when it comes to your business’ information technology management. Let’s discuss how these skills benefit your business, and how you can work to foster them.

Communication is a key part of doing business. Today, there are a variety of solutions devoted to improving your business’ communications strategy in some way, shape, or form. Here, we’ll go over the communications tools that businesses use today, and discuss why today’s business should be invested in most or all of them.

This past January, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an announcement that they had targeted and taken down the servers for a Dark Web organization responsible for the Hive ransomware group. While there is certainly cause for celebration here, one major statistic is enough reason to continue being concerned.

Last week, we went over why your business’ cybersecurity processes need to involve training. This time around, we wanted to focus on the other side of things, and delve into the essential network protections that no modern business should be operating without.

Phishing has become one of the great problems for technology users in the 21st century. The ironic part of the whole thing is that it has taken a good old-fashioned social engineering scam to make today’s robust information systems less secure. Phishing is the predominant way that hackers and scammers gain access to the systems they target. Today, we’re going to spell out what to train your employees on to help them identify phishing attacks. 

The blockchain has been a hot topic in the past few years, if only tangentially. With all the buzz around cryptocurrencies, it can be easy to forget about the underlying technology that powers it and its other applications. Let’s pivot to these other applications for a moment and discuss how the blockchain could potentially be involved with security needs at some point in the future.

Software makes business run: that is an undeniable statement. From the operations software that allows your business to manage and pay its people to the CRM that provides a pathway to communicate efficiently with customers, to all of the applications that it takes to conduct business in earnest, software plays a crucial role in your business’ success. 

Data backup is a must-have for every business, but it isn’t enough to just copy your data. You will need to have a data recovery strategy in place to ensure that your business can effectively respond after a data loss incident. Today, we’ll take a look at why considering your recovery strategy early is important, and how to prioritize it with everything else going on with your business.

Setting up a router used to be a much more complex process than it is today. Thankfully, innovations in the technology have made it simpler and easier for consumers and businesses alike to do, to the point where some Internet service providers just let users do it themselves with guided instructions. Let’s go over how you can get the most out of your wireless router.

It doesn’t take much to get us to start ranting about the dangers of phishing, and it’s a topic that we won’t stop talking about for some time. Unfortunately, phishing comes in enough forms that it isn’t always so simple to spot. For this week’s tip, we just wanted to run through the different formats phishing can take, focusing on how to identify each type.

The modern threat landscape is vast and unpredictable, and even if you think you know enough about cybersecurity to protect your business, we bet that you don’t. It’s not even just in the business world, either; individuals also struggle against cyberthreats, and so too do IT administrators. The next couple of weeks will be dedicated to cybersecurity to get across everything you need to know about it.

A lot of the time, user productivity is just about getting down to business. Sometimes, however, there are simply just too many different tasks to complete and it can bog down the production process. One way that users can use Windows to help them manage tasks is through the use of virtual desktops. Users can utilize multiple desktop experiences to separate the myriad of things they need to do. For today’s tip, we tell you how to utilize multiple virtual desktops in Windows 11. 

Remote work has seen unprecedented adoption in the past few years. While we’re all for the benefits that this trend brings, it is critical that any business that embraces remote or hybrid work does so securely.

Let’s discuss a few measures that your business can and should implement to achieve this security.

For all the benefits that remote work offers, it does come with some challenges. Fortunately, there are different strategies that can be applied to help overcome them. Let’s break down something called structured problem solving, and how equipping your team members appropriately can help you with it.

Whether you love them or hate them, passwords serve an important purpose in the realm of cybersecurity. They are the first line of defense against potential threats, yet they are also notoriously easy to crack. Some of the biggest names in technology have been working on ways to get around the challenges presented by password security, including one that we are excited to highlight in today’s blog.

Most organizations are trying to figure out how to secure their IT against the constant flood of threats out there. Unfortunately, the biggest threat out there isn’t something that you can actively protect against. Can you guess what it is?

Unfortunately, it’s your employees, and their potentially lax password practices—and while you can’t really protect yourself against insecure passwords, you can minimize the likelihood that they’ll be used.

The keyboard that you may very well have used to access this blog is, in a word, gross. While we aren’t going to go into too much detail about what makes keyboards so grimy, we did want to outline how you can easily clean up your keyboard every so often, just to make sure that it’s A: more hygienic, and B: less likely to malfunction at some point.

Most modern organizations will have digitized their businesses to at least some degree without really putting much effort or thought into it. This massive and often unconscious change has created a lot of benefits for businesses with perhaps one of the most overlooked benefits being document digitization. Today, we want to discuss the great benefits that come from this initiative and why you should consider it.

Whether or not you believe acronyms are an acceptable form of speech, some people might use them habitually or instinctively even for business communications. Of course, they don’t have much place in this context, but habits are hard to break. To address this issue, one innovative thinker has created a tool that can help determine if the acronym “LOL” is sincere or not.

It hasn’t been very long since T-Mobile experienced its latest major hack, but unfortunately, here we are again. Hackers have again accessed customer data, with 37 million customers being affected amongst both their prepaid and subscription-based accounts.

Let’s dive into the situation, and what can be learned from it.

Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, largely because there’s a lot that can pop up and cause problems that need to be addressed. Let’s discuss how successful business owners rally through tough times to help attain this kind of success.

Technology is complex, and it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. This is more the case for business technology than consumer technology. Even those who consider themselves tech-savvy might be lost when it comes to managing business-grade technology solutions. How can you make sure that your business technology is receiving the service it needs to stay operational long-term?

Our blog last week covered how patience is an important part of the most successful and productive employees’ arsenal. This week, we want to cover how you can help your employees be more patient. If you know someone in your office who could take things down a notch, this is just the blog for you with four suggestions that might do the trick.

Nobody wants to spend their weekend doing paperwork. Nobody wants to spend several evenings in a row sitting over a laptop and slowly digging through every online account they have, resetting every password and carefully documenting everything in a secure password manager. I know this better than anyone, because I forced myself to do it.

Here’s the thing though, EVERYBODY should do it. As soon as possible.

Small businesses have a lot to worry about in terms of technology, but one of the things that often gets overlooked is network security. Some small businesses feel that they are too small to be considered a viable target for hackers, but they are wrong; all businesses have data valuable for hackers in some form.

Ah, the business telephone solution. You know you need it, but you dislike working with your current telephone provider for a number of reasons. You know you can get a better deal if you look around, but we bet that the best deal around is a hosted Voice over Internet Protocol solution from Directive. How can our VoIP solution save your business time, energy, and resources?

There has been a lot made about the Internet of Things (IoT) recently. The IoT is basically technology that connects to the Internet or your network and offers some sort of specialized task. Think smart light bulbs, mobile devices, monitoring tools, and other appliances that traditionally aren’t connected to the Internet. For today’s businesses this can bring several pros and cons to the table. This month, we thought we would take a brief look at some of the pros and cons of deploying IoT technology in the workplace. 

When security breaches and data breaches are mentioned in the same breath so often, it’s easy to look at them as one and the same. However, we want to take a moment to explain the differentiating factors between the two, as it could be all the most important for protecting your business in the future.

AI has been a hot topic in recent months and years, which only makes sense. Not only has it been used in more public applications, but it has also caused a bit of controversy as it seems to “compete” with people. Back in September, art made by using an artificially intelligent platform caused a stir by winning an art competition, and workplace fears of a computer taking one’s job have seemingly become more well-founded than ever.

While there are some aspects of business technology that are quite simple, there are other parts that are complicated and difficult to understand, even for experienced users. In this month’s newsletter, we want to go over how you can keep the complexity of your IT to a minimum so that you have as few headaches as possible.

We talk a lot about different types of technology, securing your technology and your accounts, and a lot of other technology-related issues on this blog, but because of the generalities of whatever technology (or strategy) we’ve chosen to write about that day, we never confront the thing that is most important to a business: How does any technology fit into what we do here? What value do we get from any type of technology? Today, we thought we’d talk a little bit about what you need to do to find the right technology for your business and how to come up with those decisions. 

Most people are capable of productivity, but sometimes it can come a bit harder for some than for others. If you find your staff have difficulty with consistency and productivity, we aren’t here to tell you methods for increasing their productivity; rather, we want to introduce a concept that is often overlooked when trying to get the most out of your team, and is a trait often found in the most productive people, and that is patience.

Has your business been targeted by hackers? Do you even know? Let’s face it, small businesses don’t typically worry all that much about cybersecurity. To many small business owners, they might see it as a luxury for their perceived risk. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that hackers and scammers are targeting small businesses more regularly than they have in the past and without some kind of dedicated cybersecurity strategy, there could be a good chance that your business could run into some problems because of it. 

For many years now, there’s been a bit of a fear of AI—artificial intelligence—in the workplace, all while it has been put into practical use more and more often in many businesses. This all ties back to the work of Alan Turing, who (amongst his accomplishments in computing) created what we know as the Turing Test as a means of gauging how intelligent a computer is. 

Simple passwords are just not an effective security practice, so if you’re still using credentials like Password, 123456, Guest, or Qwerty, listen up. You need better password hygiene practices before you suffer from a data breach. Here are some ways you can make a better password to protect your business from threats.

There’s no beating around the bush with this one; moving data from one place to another, also known as data migration, is critical to get right the first time. If you create and follow a migration strategy, evaluating here and there to make sure it’s all going according to plan, you’ll see great success in this effort. Let’s go over how you can make it happen.

For a long time, businesses that didn’t have any cybersecurity problems would never consider investing in additional cybersecurity tools. The decision-makers of these companies simply didn’t find it necessary; and many of them had a point (until they didn’t). Today’s threat landscape is much, much more complex than it was only a few short years ago and therefore businesses need to make a point to set up the security tools that will help them secure their network and infrastructure from threats. Let’s take a look at some strategies that work to help modern businesses secure their digital resources:

Unfortunately, the number of cyberattacks is consistently growing and many of those attacks target business end users. This means that any account that requires a password for access could conceivably be compromised should attackers gain access to its credentials. At Directive, we promote the use of multi-factor authentication (also known as two-factor authentication or 2FA) to mitigate some of the risk inherent with the use of password-based accounts in business. 

When times get tough, businesses are pretty quick to start cutting costs wherever they can…and frequently, the business’ IT is the first thing to hit the chopping block.

While we contend that IT is the last thing you want to cut back on when times are tough, you may not have a choice. Therefore, we wanted to take a few moments to explore how you can resist some of these cuts—and if not, what you need to prioritize.

Social media can be remarkably overstimulating, and for some users this is a problem which is difficult to navigate without giving it up entirely. If you want a nice middle-ground to terminating your account entirely, you can instead curate your news feed by unfollowing accounts that don’t enrich your day. Let’s go over how you can do this.

Simple passwords are often the bane of a business’ existence. If you routinely use strings like Password, 123456, Guest,  or Qwerty to secure an account, then you need to reexamine your password practices before they lead to a data breach. A good password can go a long way toward helping you in this effort.

Depending on the size and complexity of your organization, managing technology can easily become a full-time job. If you are only calling a technician when you are dealing with a computer issue, then you might be sitting on a ticking time bomb. Whether you have internal staff responsible for managing your IT, or you rely on a third-party, you’ll want to make sure the following tasks are getting done.

It’s a technology-driven world. We are surrounded by technology all the time, and some people literally couldn’t do what they do without it. More than would admit, anyway. So with all this technology all over the place, are we happier? This is a big question. Far bigger than we have time for in this blog, but we thought we would unpack the question a little bit and discuss some elements of this new technology-run society that can give us some insight into people’s feelings.

iPhone users should be aware that, should you encounter a pop-up that reads “Your Apple iPhone is severely damaged”, you don’t need to be concerned—beyond the concern you’d have for any other threat, that is. This pop-up is just a recent iteration of a common phishing scam that aims to fool people into downloading apps that enable hackers to access personal information.

If you have ever invested time and effort into an Excel spreadsheet, then you know how irritating it is to move all of that data to a different sheet. Thankfully, you can easily and accurately copy this data using a simple technique. Here’s how you can do it.

The telephone, as a technology, has been around for quite a while, more or less serving businesses for that entire time. Of course, we’ve seen quite a few advancements in telephony over the years, which has helped it to remain a cornerstone of modern business communications to this day in the form of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

One of the big advantages that Mac computers have had over the traditional PC is that they “don’t get viruses,” but how true is this claim, really? Research conducted by Elastic Security Labs proves that this is certainly not the case, discrediting the prior claims of ads arguing the former.

When you suffer a data breach, you might wonder how you can possibly come back from such an event, especially if it leads to a network compromise. Can your business rebound effectively, and if so, what do you need to do to make sure that it doesn’t happen again? It all starts with understanding how much data you need to function, as well as how much downtime you can afford to suffer from.

We get it—nobody likes to think about the prospect of being impacted by a cybersecurity incident, but it’s like any other unpleasant event in that it is best to prepare for it. In fact, today’s businesses can invest in a cyber insurance policy to help prepare for such an eventuality.

Let’s go over some of the ins and outs of cyber insurance so that you are prepared to make the best choice of provider for your business.

It probably isn’t hard to think of a time when you’ve stumbled across something that would be useful for work while you were doing some personal browsing. What if I told you there was an easy way to send a website to your browser to view later? Thanks to Google Chrome, this is the case.

There are a lot of reasons that website traffic can fluctuate. Sometimes, it has little to do with your actual website, and more to do with outside forces. Let’s take a look at some of the things that can cause major ebbs and flows in your website traffic and analytic reports.

Microsoft Excel is a great tool for keeping data and figures organized…until, that is, you need to scroll down at all, leaving some important headers out of sight. Fortunately, there is a way to keep your headings in view: freezing the panes they are present in. Let’s go over how to do so.

Do your employees have a hard time with the technology that you’ve provided them? Are your digitization efforts lagging behind? Are the systems your business is using coming up on their end of support date? Old technology can cause major problems for a business. In this week’s blog, we go through some of the signs that you may need to upgrade your business’ technology.

All jobs have aspects of them that are simply dull or unengaging. After all, nothing can be exciting all the time. This week we wanted to focus on these rote tasks and what you can do to make them less of an impact on your time and job fulfillment. Turns out, the key to solving this issue stems from technology, specifically the ability to automate said tasks.

While security researchers do their best to find security vulnerabilities in software and systems before they are actively exploited by attackers, they can’t be successful all the time. There are too many threats and too many variables to consider, and zero-day exploits are often discovered well after they are actively being exploited by threats. How can you keep zero-day exploits from impacting your business?

The business world is always ebbing and flowing with new concepts, ideas, and strategies in the  attempt to innovate. The more technology can be used to do things that help a business run, the more processes can be automated bringing a layer of efficiency that isn’t possible without it. Let’s take a brief look at some of the technology trends that small businesses will be confronted with in 2023. 

Countless jokes have been made in the IT world about the perfect place to hide something being page two of Google—just hang out with some IT professionals, and there’s a good chance you’ll hear it. Unfortunately, Google is making a change to its search results that will make this joke completely irrelevant.

There is a scam going around that convinces organizations to pay for their Google Business Profile, and if you paid for this free service, you’ve fallen for the trick. Google is taking legal action against the scammers who have dragged their name through the mud, using Google’s notoriety to defraud businesses who just want to look competitive.

So, you want to utilize cloud computing for your business. Making that decision is a good start, but now you need to figure out how the cloud will help accomplish the goals you’ve set for your business. You need to develop a cloud strategy.

Fortunately, we can help.

The Internet of Things, or IoT, has grown to over 14 billion connected devices as of this year, and this number is expected to exceed 20 billion devices by the end of 2026. With such a shocking number of devices, you might wonder what types of devices are out there and what they mean for your business. Let’s look at the IoT and what you need to know to keep it at the top of your mind this upcoming year.

With so many threats out in the world, it’s no surprise that some of them target undiscovered vulnerabilities. These types of threats use what are called zero-day exploits to make attempts at your sensitive data and technology infrastructure. What is it about zero-day exploits that you must keep in mind during your day-to-day operations and in planning for the future?

So, you’re looking to improve your business’ technology…that’s great! More effective solutions are critical to helping boost your success. However, it is important to acknowledge that these kinds of initiatives don’t always have the greatest record of success. Let’s examine why this is, and critically, what can be done about it.

Our business began its journey with the purchase of a personal computer back in 1992. This purchase ignited a passion with Chris Chase, our CEO, and there was no stopping its momentum. Less than one year later, he had his first IT support client (and they are still with us, to this day!). Fast forward 30 years we’ve grown to be the area's largest business technology consulting firm, providing technology implementation and IT management solutions to Oneonta’s businesses and providing careers for our 30+ team members.

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.

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.

Magnets are often portrayed as the bane of technology’s existence, especially in media where data must be scrubbed from devices through the use of a magnet. How true is this representation of the relationship between magnets and technology? We’ll examine this in today’s blog article.

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. 

Google Chrome, used by about two-thirds of Internet users, is an infamous battery hog…or at least, that used to be the case. Google recently released Chrome 108, and with it, a feature called “Energy Saver.” Let’s talk about how to enable 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.

Passwordless authentication has been increasingly spoken of in favor of the typical password-based method, and is gaining traction the more it is talked about. Google recently took steps toward passwordless that we felt warranted some discussion.

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.

It’s easy to get so caught up in what you are doing that you let your guard down. What if there were just one small change you could make in your life that would immediately reduce the chances of falling victim to a phishing attack?