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Directive Blogs

Directive has been serving the Oneonta area since 1993, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support, and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

There is a Strategy to Making Smart Technology Investments

A lot of companies are making large technology investments, in fact, if you are here now, you are probably thinking about making such an investment for your own business. One problem that growing companies have is identifying and investing in the right technology. Today, we thought we would give you a couple of tips on how to go about making technology investment decisions that will be the most advantageous for your business.

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Maintenance is More than Computer Repair

When you think of downtime, you probably think about the power or your Internet connection going out and leaving you unable to do work. Unfortunately, these are anecdotes that seem benign, but are actually extraordinarily costly. When interruptions to your business’ computing infrastructure are constantly hindering productivity, you need to come up with a solution.

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Securing Your Organization’s Wireless Network

With so many wireless networks available to connect to, it’s no surprise that wireless security is a cornerstone of working while on the go. We thought it would be helpful to have a list of best practices to help ensure your wireless networks, and the devices connecting to them, are as secure as possible.

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Tip of the Week: Keep Your Computer Working Effectively with These 5 Tips

Computers allow businesses to do so much, but eventually a time comes to purchase new hardware. Thankfully, you can stave off this need pretty well by simply taking care of your existing technology. Here are some tips you can implement to make sure that your computer lasts as long as possible before it kicks the bucket.

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Supply Chain Issues Wreaking Havoc for Businesses

In many places, businesses have been operating in a manner that is closer to “business as usual” than “pandemic-altered”. This doesn’t mean the pandemic is over, but a lot of businesses are now able to make decisions as they were before the pandemic. This is a good thing, but there is one aspect of business that doesn’t seem to be normalizing: the supply chain. Let’s take a look at why supply chain issues persist and what you can do about them.

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Are Your Collaboration Tools Actually Isolating Your Employees?

Many businesses were very suddenly introduced to the capabilities of modern collaboration tools, as… circumstances forced them to either go remote or cease operations for an unknown amount of time. However, while collaboration tools were suddenly a requisite for work, could these tools now be responsible for isolating your team members from one another?

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Communication Tools Your Business Needs to Consider

The software you choose to use for your business largely defines the capabilities of it. When it comes to communications there are some very standard options that you probably already have and then there are some more innovative options that can have significant benefits for your staff. Let’s take a look at some of the standard communications options a business might use and how they can use technology to crank it up a bit.

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Protecting Your Company Credit Cards

While protecting the credit card data you collect from your customers and clients is obviously important, you likely also have a line of credit for your business’ use that you need to think about as well. Let’s turn our focus to that card for a moment and discuss some tips and best practices to keep this company resource safe.

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E-Waste is a Massive Problem that We Can All Help Fix

Discarded electronics, including the hardware that so many businesses cycle through, are a big problem—and not one that we can ignore for a variety of reasons. Let’s explore the issues surrounding e-waste, as well as what can be done to reduce it.

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Tip of the Week: Maneuvering Around Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a video communication and collaboration platform that your organization can use to great success, but it helps to have a couple of pointers so you can make the most out of the software. Here are five ways you can maximize the value you get out of your Microsoft Teams software.

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Tip of the Week: Improve Your Collaboration by Doing these Three Things

Businesses are rarely successful with just one person doing all the work; rather, businesses are largely successful when a group of people are working together toward the same goal. To promote this type of collaboration within your organization, we suggest you keep the following tips in mind.

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Refreshing Your Business’ Digital Signage Helps Refresh Your Business

Digital signage platforms are on the rise, and they are giving businesses more opportunities to help their office visitors feel more connected and comfortable. You might be surprised by how affordable and accessible digital signage solutions can be, hence why they are growing in popularity with businesses.

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Using Your Voice to Type in Microsoft Word

Typing on your keyboard is something that you do every day, but sometimes you just don’t want to do it. You can give your hands a break and use Microsoft Word’s dictation feature; this lets you use your voice to write in the software. Let’s go over how you might use the feature on a desktop, web browser, or mobile device.

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How to Optimize Your Google Business Profile: Part 2

When it comes to Google Business Profiles and Google’s algorithm your business’ visibility may depend on how good your business’ profile is. We further explain how to optimize your profile to not only comply with the practices demanded by the almighty Google Search algorithm but also provide searchers with the exact information they need. 

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Four Problems that Can Undermine an IT Project

It might be an understatement to suggest that things don’t always go smoothly in business. The truth is that when one problem is solved, another is often created. This is why we lean on our technology. These “solutions” are intended to fix many of the speedbumps, but that doesn’t mean that choosing, deploying, and supporting these systems don’t come with some problems as well. Today, we look at three reasons an IT project could fail. 

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When is It Time to Automate Some of My Business Processes?

Automation has been a business buzzword for some time now, and was a key facet for many businesses remaining open through the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it seems like there’s no reason for it not to remain in use from this point on. Let’s examine a few ways that automation can and likely will be used moving forward.

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Department of Justice Updates Website Accessibility Guidelines: What You Should Know

It’s important to make your website as accessible as possible to your audience. Obviously, you want to accommodate all the different customers and visitors you might have, and if you provide a poor experience for a person, they might not stick around and become a customer. This is nothing new, and over the years there have been discussions about ADA compliance and accessibility for websites. This blog is going to demystify this topic.

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Tip of the Week: How to Download Google Workspace Files

Google Workspace is a great tool that allows you to get a lot done, but sometimes you might find yourself in a position where you need to download the files and take them with you or send them to someone. In these cases, you might not want to share the link. Instead, you can simply download them as whatever file format you might need!

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Tip of the Week: 3 Things You Can Do to Keep Your Business’ IT More Secure

With many businesses’ increased reliance on their information systems and other IT, they need to do everything they can to keep those systems up and running and secure. This not only includes rolling out security systems that support that goal, it also demands they take the action necessary to keep these systems secure. Let’s look at four things you need to do to keep your business’ IT as secure as possible. 

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Can Your Computer Support Consultant Answer These 3 Questions Correctly?

There is a massive difference between being able to fix a broken computer and managing the IT for an entire business. It’s critical that the person/people/company managing your IT understands the reason you have IT in the first place.

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What’s Going on With the Microprocessor Shortages?

There is a microprocessor shortage influencing all kinds of businesses around the globe, and it’s only going to get worse following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine produces somewhere between 45 and 54 percent of the world’s semiconductor-grade neon, something which is absolutely crucial to the creation of microchips. The invasion has put a halt to neon-refinement companies Ingas and Cryoin, and as you can imagine, this puts a massive strain on an already struggling supply chain.

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What Most Often Leads to a Data Breach?

Data breaches—any event where a business’ confidential data is viewed, copied, or stolen by an unauthorized person or party—are a serious problem. Unfortunately, they are also a serious problem that can be caused by no shortage of situations. Let’s review some of the causes of business data breaches so you’ll know what to keep an eye out for.

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VoIP Offers Too Many Benefits to Ignore

The telephone has been a part of business processes since it was invented, with businesses quickly taking advantage of the new features that telephony has introduced as it has improved over the years. VoIP—Voice over Internet Protocol—is the latest improvement, and as such, offers businesses a lot of great benefits to embrace.

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Three Ways to Help Your IT Budget Go Further

Running a business can be stressful, and if you can’t find time to juggle the countless variables that are at play every day of the week, you’ll quickly find yourself falling behind what needs to be done. Technology is one such area where falling behind is easy, especially when it comes to purchasing and implementing new tools. Unfortunately, your IT budget is not limitless, so how can you make the most of it? Let’s take a look.

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Smart Businesses Encourage Their Staff to Get Computer Support

This one is for all of the business owners, C-level executives, directors, and office managers throughout Otsego, Delaware, and Chenango county. I think your intentions are pure, but you might be doing something at work each and every day that is the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.

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What You Need to Know to Get Through a Data Disaster

A disaster recovery plan is a strategy that allows a business to return to normal after a disruption of some type. Some data disasters are brought on by outside attacks, some are the result of a natural disaster or environmental issue, and some are simply a return to normal after an internal problem interferes with business operations. Today, we’ll take a look at a few things you need to know about disaster recovery to help you mitigate the negative effects of a data disaster. 

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With a Managed Service Provider, Every Day is Backup Day

Tomorrow, March 31st, is the official World Backup Day, a day intended to remind us all of the importance of taking backups for the sake of data continuity. While this kind of day can be a valuable reminder of a critical best practice, we contend that your awareness of your backup (and the associated maintenance of it) should not be limited to a single day.

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The False Dichotomy of Smart Technologies

For years, we’ve heard about how machines are coming for our jobs. We may even know some people who have been replaced by machines of some sort. This has given workers an overarching fear that once the machines are smart and capable enough to do what they do, that they will be out on their cans with few real options. This is mostly a fallacy. Today, we will explore the notion that machines are out for our jobs and how they may actually work to make our jobs better. 

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Have Passwords Finally Outlived their Usefulness?

Passwords have been a primary data security measure since 1960, when MIT researcher Fernando Corbató suggested the practice—although even he is reportedly slow to take full credit. Why? Well, if you ask Corbató (and his contemporaries, who were the first to implement passwords as we’d recognize them today), the security concerns were limited.

So, have we reached the point where it would be best to replace passwords as the default authentication measure?

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As a Boss, Can I Monitor My Employees Through Their Webcams?

One of the great obstacles many businesses have to remote work is the fact that, well, the team will be remote—not in the office, safely under supervision. This has led many to consider using the webcams installed in their employees’ devices to keep tabs on them. Let’s explore the idea of monitoring your team, and why it probably isn’t a good one.

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Companies Seeing a Lot of Turnover in Their IT Teams

We all know the importance of IT maintenance and management when it comes to effectively running a business, but it’s really hard to ensure that your technology is being properly maintained when your staff have one foot out the door. A new survey from Gartner suggests that IT employees are more likely to leave your business than other non-IT employees, and this puts a heavier burden on you to make sure technology is properly taken care of.

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Computer Parts and Hardware are Getting Harder to Get!

Prices are going up and it’s taking longer to get the hardware you might need for your business. Here are some things that might help. Prices are going up and it’s taking longer to get the hardware you might need for your business. Here are some things that might help.

The latest obstacle for small businesses isn’t exactly new, it’s been a growing issue since the start of the pandemic, but it’s definitely catching up to local businesses in a big way now; the global chip shortage.

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What is a Security Operations Center?

With cybersecurity a priority for every business that depends on their IT, there are a lot of different strategies being utilized out there to keep threats off of networks and data safe. One of the most advanced strategies being used today is enlisting a service that runs a Security Operations Center (SOC). Today, we’ll investigate what a SOC is and how it works to keep threats at bay. 

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How Do Hybrid Work Strategies Help Your Business?

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that not all companies have considered how to be flexible in their operations, but it has also given them opportunities to adjust accordingly. With these new flexibilities in place, what does the future of your office look like? Would you ever consider a hybrid approach to the workplace?

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Don’t Miss World Backup Day (But Don’t Wait For It, Either)

World Backup Day is March 31st, each and every year. However, while there is value to having a dedicated holiday to raise awareness of the need for backup, it should not be the only time it is considered. Let’s go over the importance of proper backup practices, just in time for the holiday, so that you can establish the backup that your business needs if it's not already in place.

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How to Fight Back Against Cloud-Based Cybercrime

The cloud is far and away one of the most beneficial technologies that a modern business has at its disposal. Unfortunately, the same can be said for modern cybercriminals. The cloud has given cybercriminals new opportunities that are important to acknowledge—as well, of course, to protect your business against.

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Why Should You Bother with Data Backup?

A good business owner envisions the future and what it could bring about. You may have already devoted a considerable amount of time to the good things that could happen, but how often do you picture the bad? If you don’t imagine the worst-case scenario, you could be putting your business’ life on the line. Are you prepared to deal with a data loss incident?

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It’s Global Recycling Day… Do You Know Your Business’ Carbon Footprint?

Today is Global Recycling Day and is intended to remind us of all the materials that can be reused in everyday life, in part as a way to decrease our individual carbon footprint. However, it's valuable to know how much your business contributes in terms of its carbon footprint… and, once you know that figure, how you can reduce it.

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The As-a-Service Government is Improving Public Services

When you think of the government, you don’t immediately think of an organization that is at the forefront of innovation. Sure, they have all that money at their disposal, but most of it goes here and there to try to help the people of a constituency; and, frankly it isn’t terribly efficient. What may surprise you is that governments are embracing cloud services and it tends to benefit everyone. Let’s see how governments are taking advantage of cloud computing.

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Tip of the Week: Why Your Team is Resistant to IT (or Any) Change

Change, whether you’re referring to that of your technology or any other business process, is often a point of contention between management and the rest of the business. Let’s explore this resistance to change that so many feel, and how you can help them overcome it

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Remote Work Is More Normal Now that It Has Ever Been

Remote work is more common than ever before, but it wasn’t always this way. It’s still a relatively new method of operations, and while there are quite a few benefits for both employees and employers, there are other impacts related to remote work that can have far-reaching consequences.

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Tighten Up Your Network Security with Superior Access Control

How often do you find yourself stressing out about who has access to which data or internal resources on your company network? What about who has access to open the front door of your office or who has access to important physical resources within your building? Ensuring the security of your business’ assets is critical, and access control tools can help your company ensure that only authorized individuals have access to specific parts of your organization’s infrastructure, be it physical or digital.

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While Fun, Those Social Media Quizzes Can be Dangerous

We’ve all seen our friends and family sharing quizzes on their social media profiles, prompting people to find out what their celebrity stage name or what Hogwarts house you would be in, or to share what their first concert experience was. These fun, lighthearted quizzes are a great way to get to know a little more about the people we’re connected with… and that’s the biggest problem.

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What are My Options for Connecting a Second Monitor?

Laptops are pretty great, I think we can all agree, simply due to their portability. Having said that, the one-screen situation that laptops bring with them can certainly get in the way of productivity—particularly for those who are used to using more than one. Let’s discuss why an additional display is so helpful, and what your options may be for hooking one up to your laptop.

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Consider These 4 Ideas for Improved Video Meetings

Today, remote workers are constantly asked to endure meetings over their organization’s chosen video conferencing applications and while it may not be an ideal situation to enhance the collaborative flow of your team, there are certain variables that you can control to get the most out of your company’s virtual meetings. Let’s take a look at a few:

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How to Optimize Your Google Business Profile: Part 1

When it comes to your business’ visibility online, your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy plays an absolutely critical role. While SEO is influenced by a lot of different factors, we wanted to focus on one way you can boost it: your Google Business profile.

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Broken Computer? Do These Things Before Taking It to the Shop

Try as we might, we can’t prevent all computer issues from occurring—for instance, there’s not much that we can do if a stick of RAM dies, at least, not remotely. However, if you’re stuck with a broken computer and need to bring it in for repair work, there are a few things we recommend you do.

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Take a Long Look at Your Cybersecurity

Gauging the effectiveness of your cybersecurity can be a bit of a daunting task, especially when asking if it could make a major difference in protecting your organization’s network infrastructure. If you want to track and measure your business’ cybersecurity preparedness, here are four steps to help you perform an evaluation.

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Reviewing Smartphones - The Foldables

With so many great smartphones on the market, there are bound to be a couple that stand out for being innovative and interesting in their designs. These devices—many of which fall into the foldable category—are pretty neat and worth looking into. Here are some of the better options on the market today.

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How to Get Cybersecurity Through to Your Staff

Getting your staff to care about your organizational network and data security may be more difficult than you might think, but it’s not a lost cause. Today, keeping your business’ organizational security strong relies heavily on your staff’s willingness to follow the right practices, so today we thought we’d give you seven tips to get your people to care about security

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The Business of the Future, Today

A lot of people like to venture predictions about what the future will bring for business, and many of those predictions are based on anecdotes and hopes. When it comes to information system management and the future of IT for business, there are a lot of claims made by companies looking to take advantage of the reliance on IT and present business owners’ and decision makers’ options on how to leverage this technology for their own good. Today, we thought we would take a look at three emerging technologies that we will all come to use in the future and whether they are right for your business now.

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Businesses Should Opt for Zero-Trust Policies when it Comes to IT

In the business world, it can be difficult to know who to trust in regard to cybersecurity. In many cases, businesses are simply opting to not trust any device, friend or foe, when it comes to their data security. This type of zero-trust model is slowly becoming the norm, and it’s one that your organization might consider moving forward.

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How Do Hardware Shortages Affect Business Decisions

How often over the past year or two have you gone to replace a device on your infrastructure, only to find that the price has increased or the device simply isn’t available? This is an issue with the current hardware shortage, particularly for business electronics. Since businesses depend on technology, it becomes critical that you understand how this shortage impacts your day-to-day operations.

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Change Your Organization’s Strategies and Technology to Improve Employee Productivity

Collaboration is not just nice, it is the only way many businesses can afford to keep the lights on. Understanding that truth makes it important to find the right strategies and technologies to support your staff’s collaborative endeavors. Today, we take a look at a few options to help improve your business’ collaboration. 

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Automation Any Business Can Fit In Their Business Plan

In modern businesses, automation can be implemented in a lot of ways, but for small businesses, it may be more difficult to find ways to incorporate time-saving automation. In this week’s blog we’ve decided to point out a few ways even the smallest business can use automation to their advantage and give their employees the freedom to focus on revenue creating processes. 

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Reviewing Smartphones - Value Devices

“Value” smartphones don’t always have to be “bad” smartphones! To help you get the most out of your investment, we’ve put together a list of the best and brightest value smartphones on the market today. You might be surprised by how much value these manufacturers can pack into such devices!

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Ransomware Isn’t the Only Malware You Need to Know

Network security could mean any number of things, but more often than not, people are using the term as a blanket statement against the dreaded idea of malware and its many forms. Today, we are discussing how vast the world of malware can be and how often you might find yourself misunderstanding what it exactly is. Knowing all this can help you identify if you have become a malware victim or not.

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Behind Employee Cybersecurity Efforts or Lack Thereof

Cyberattacks can cost businesses a lot of money. They’re also more prevalent today than ever before. It seems you can’t go a couple of news cycles without hearing about some organization that has been hacked or scammed and it’s resulted in the sensitive data the organization holds being sold online, vast operational downtime, or worse. For this reason, many organizations have deliberately built up their cybersecurity infrastructure, enhanced their policies, and invested in training to ensure that they aren’t the next victim. Unfortunately, this attention doesn’t always work. 

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Get More Efficient with Technology and Shifts in Strategy

Collaboration is important for many businesses and it is something that takes some time to master. In fact, a lot of businesses that do pretty well struggle when it comes to getting their project teams and operational staff to work together. Today, we thought we would take a look at technologies and strategies that will not only help collaboration, but can promise rises in productivity as well. 

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Microsoft Implementing Price Hike to Services

Microsoft has planned an increase in the price of its software offerings Microsoft 365 and Office 365, and make no mistake, it will impact your business in some way whether you are ready or not. We are writing this blog to share information that you might find important about this price increase so you can plan to get the most out of your software moving forward.

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When It Comes to Internet Security Awareness, It’s Best to Start Early

Hopefully, you’re aware of how important cybersecurity is today—if not, make sure you come back to our blog often for more information on that. The Internet, for all its benefits, can easily be the source of serious threats. With today’s youth growing more connected, these threats can easily target them… making it all the more important to start teaching cybersecurity awareness and best practices early. 

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Reviewing Smartphones - The Flagships

When purchasing your next smartphone, you might want to consider the latest flagship devices. Today, we want to discuss what the latest and greatest smartphones can offer for your business.

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AI Impacting the Healthcare Industry in Interesting Ways

Healthcare is one industry that consistently operates under an immense amount of pressure, and as such, professionals in the industry are always trying to find new and innovative ways to make things more manageable. The latest technology to aid in this trend is artificial intelligence, or AI, and it has proven to be a considerable asset for the industry. Here are some ways that AI has changed the way healthcare manages particularly stressful situations for the better.

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IT Procurement Has Hit a Snag Thanks to Supply Chain Issues

If you have tried to procure hardware or products over the past couple years, chances are you have noticed that it is harder to find them than usual. This is particularly the case for any companies that have dealings with computing hardware, as the price has been hiked considerably on even the most basic of components. What has triggered this dramatic change in the technology supply chain, and what can be done about it?

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Explaining VoIP and Its Immense Benefits

Communication solutions are especially important in today’s world of remote and hybrid work, and we are here to tell you that the traditional telephone solution you’ve known and loved for all these years is simply not viable in today’s business environment. Thankfully, a viable replacement is widely available, and it’s all thanks to Voice over IP technology.

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Managed Services – The Ultimate SMB Budget Hack

It’s not often that something profoundly changes the landscape of business technology management as much as managed services has. When implemented correctly, managed IT services can completely replace the traditional methods of technology management within a company, and it all starts with changing not just your budgeting practices but also your maintenance practices.

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Building a Secure Environment for Collaboration

More workplaces than ever before are utilizing the power of remote technology, but this also creates problems with security that must be addressed. How can you ensure that your organization isn’t putting itself at risk as a result of this general displacement of your workforce? Let’s discuss some action items you might choose to implement for your business.

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How to Get Get More Done and Feel Better About It

Maintaining a standard of consistent productivity can be difficult. This is doubly true if there is constant distraction. For many workers, handling these distractions is work in itself. When trying to maximize productivity it is important to undertake actions that support that goal, and when there are a lot of consistent distractions, it is useful to have a baseline of knowledge on how to do just that. Let’s take a look at five solid tips to help you maintain productivity.

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Artificial Intelligence Can Bring Healthcare Some Welcome Advances

Healthcare is an industry that—quite understandably—operates under very high pressure for a significant share of the time. As a result, it is only natural to conclude that a technology that could potentially make the lives of healthcare providers and administrators easier in numerous ways shows some promise. That technology is artificial intelligence.

Let’s go over a few of the many ways that AI has been proposed (if not implemented already) as a solution to some of healthcare’s more challenging stresses.

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Explaining the Pen Test and Its Benefits

Penetration testing is a topic that you might often hear and read about on the Internet, but you might not know exactly what it is without having it explained to you by a professional. Today, we want to clear up any misconceptions or ideas you might have about penetration testing and how it relates to your business’ network security, compliance, and regulatory requirements.

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Protecting Digital Assets a Must for Modern Businesses

Business can be difficult when everything goes right, but when disaster strikes, serious issues arise that need to be answered fast and if you don’t have a business continuity plan in place, your business will be in peril. It doesn’t matter what you do, if circumstances decide that your business needs to shut down, having a disaster recovery policy in place as a part of a larger continuity plan, will do more than you think to save your business. 

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Your Employee Data is Important to Protect Too

When we talk about data privacy in a business, the default is to generally think about the data the business has collected and compiled from its clientele. However, that’s just one type of data a business has. There’s also a lot of data that is collected by the business about that business’ employees. So, how well protected is this data?

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QR Codes Come Into Their Own Thanks to the Pandemic

When was the last time you used a QR code? For two decades of struggling to gain traction and considered a niche technology, QR codes have gained a new lease on life. In response to COVID-19, social distancing, and contactless and cash-free interactions, many businesses are taking a second look at QR codes.

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Stabilize Your Computing Costs with Cloud Computing

The cloud is one way that businesses are changing their operations for the better. Not only does the cloud enable organizations to function in drastically different ways from the status quo, it also gives businesses countless opportunities to reduce costs. Here are just a few ways you can expect the cloud to reduce your expenses and improve your return on investment for IT resources.

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Remote Collaboration Demands Additional Security

Workforces have been increasingly distributed and many businesses aim to continue that strategy for the foreseeable future. There are a fair share of challenges that distributed employees have themselves, but for the business, it can be tough getting them to do the things that need to be done to secure the business. Here are a few actions that need to be taken if you want to make that happen. 

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The Emergence of the CISO

As statistics for cybercrime surge, it’s important to remember that your organization must do all that it can to protect itself. There is, however, a C-suite position that almost exclusively focuses on this task: the chief information security officer, or CISO. Many enterprises have individuals dedicated to the sole task of securing their organization, but smaller businesses might find themselves lagging behind in this regard due to no fault of their own.

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What You Can Do to Make Your Cloud Resources More Secure

Look, we are big fans of the cloud, especially for data storage, but you shouldn’t implement the cloud without a solid security strategy. Whether you are using it for your business’ data storage needs or just to take backups of your infrastructure, you’ll still need to keep various facets of security in mind for your cloud storage. It all starts with figuring out how secure your cloud provider really is.

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What’s the Difference Between a Security Incident and a Breach?

Cybersecurity is an important subject for a business’ entire team to appreciate, particularly when it comes to the minute differences between different terms. For instance, a layperson might hear “breach” and automatically think “security incident.” While this technically isn’t incorrect, per se, the two terms aren’t really synonymous.

Let’s take a few moments to dive into the minutiae and define these two terms more clearly.

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Tip of the Week: Import Your Bookmarks in Chrome

Bookmarks are an essential part of being productive with your Internet browser, but what happens when you switch to a different one, like Google Chrome? Do you have to manually add all of your bookmarks back to the browser? Nope! Let’s go over how you can import your bookmarks directly to Google Chrome and save some time.

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The Highest-End Smartphones Right Now - Foldables

For the past two weeks we have looked at some of the best phones and some that bring the most value. This week, we turned our gaze to a form factor that is only a couple of years old, but seems to be the future of mobile technology, foldable screens. The different form factors made possible by foldable OLED technology make the future of mobile devices more exciting. Let’s take a look at three of the top foldable devices right now.

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How to Keep Your Remote Team from Siloing

While remote work has been a relatively new option for many businesses currently using it in their operations, it has already shown considerable benefits. Having said that, it would be incongruous of us if we didn’t also acknowledge one glaring issue that remote work has helped to foster: a sense of disconnect in many of those making use of it.

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How to Properly Manage Business Software

It's always important to maintain and manage the tools you use for work. Nowadays, this includes the software your business uses each day. Let's go over some tips for doing so properly.

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Unified Communications Help in the Office and in the Field

Wherever a business’ team happens to be working, maintaining communications is a huge priority. This is not only for the sake of operations, but also for the sake of your company culture. Let’s explore how this can be accomplished through a strategy known as unified communications.

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When It Comes to Ransomware, It's Best to Avoid It

Ransomware is widely regarded as one of the worst modern cyberthreats out there today, and there's plenty of evidence to support this. These attacks and their aftereffects can devastate businesses of all industries. Let's consider why it is that ransomware is so dangerous, and what can be done to fight it. 

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Tip of the Week: Stop Overworking from Home

It’s quite possible for employees to overwork themselves, even in a remote environment. Let’s take a look at some ways that you can minimize remote overwork for your employees, especially as the boundaries typically set in place by the morning commute are eroded and work/life balance blurs.

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What To Do When Your Remote Workforce Needs Computer Repair

For many businesses (and employees), remote work has been a godsend, while proving its value and efficacy as a viable means of productivity… particularly when certain health crises make gathering in the office an unsafe prospect. Recently, businesses have adopted somewhat-hybridized approaches to their work processes. While this is clearly a wise move for the business, it also opens the door for some otherwise unprecedented challenges.

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Are Smart Devices Getting Smarter?

Smart devices are everywhere, with the Internet of Things (the blanket term for any device that connects to the Internet for added functionality) growing larger each day. While this is great for convenience (and in many cases, the "cool factor") it can have some chilling ramifications for cybersecurity.

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Let’s Take a Look at 2021’s Best Smartphones: Value Phones

Last week we took a look at three of the most impressive phones on the market. Those phones all cost a pretty penny. Not that you will get a new smartphone for a song, but it’s just not feasible for most people to drop over a thousand bucks on a new smartphone. Most cellular carriers make it palatable by allowing people to finance the phones as a part of their monthly cellular service, but if you are looking for a strong device that comes in under $500, here are three good options.

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Ransomware is Only Getting Worse in 2022… So What Can You Do?

Ransomware has been commonplace for years, with no sign of it going anywhere anytime soon. Let’s take a few moments to examine the state of ransomware right now, and review how to keep it from impacting your businesses.

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Avoiding Scams Starts with Awareness

The world is full of people who would try to take advantage of your organization and its employees—or, in less gratifying words, scammers. They will do everything they can to try to fool your company and make a quick buck doing so. How can you make sure that the countless messages and phone calls you receive on a daily basis aren’t crooks trying to scam you out of house and home? It all starts with a little awareness.

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Tip of the Week: Working Remotely, Without Overworking Remotely

Remote work has become a major part of modern business operations for a great many companies, but there is also a difficulty that frequently comes into play with remote work: the phenomenon of overwork. Let’s review some tips to help minimize the risk of overwork as people continue remote work.

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Steps You Can Take to Maximize Work-from-Home Productivity

We’re coming up on two years since the COVID-19 pandemic changed many workplaces’ operational strategies from in-person work to remote work. In that time, many businesses who hadn’t initially considered remote working to be a viable option have now made it a core part of their onboarding process. This means there are plenty of workers who are now beginning remote work who haven’t really experienced it before. Today, we thought we’d go through a couple of strategies that will help remote employees be as productive as possible as they work from home. 

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What Do You Need Onsite Computing For?

Cloud computing has been a hot topic in IT circles for a few years. First because of the skepticism that many IT professionals had for the practice, and now that it is a mainstream business technology, ways to boost security to protect the organization who has embraced this computing strategy. We’re here to tell you that while cloud computing is convenient, flexible, and seemingly affordable, there are instances where having physical machines makes more sense for a business. 

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The Best Smartphones Right Now - Flagships

There’s no denying that the smartphone has completely changed the way in which we live. Today’s world is much more connected—for better or worse—and the majority of content is viewed using a smartphone. Let’s take a look at three of the very best smartphones available in the early stages of 2022.

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3 Common Technical Issues We’re Here to Help With

There are times when you experience computer problems and you might hesitate to call in the big guns to resolve the issue. Unfortunately, the reality is that many businesses are under the impression that calling experts to handle their computer problems will leave them in a difficult position financially. We’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen! Here are three common computer repair problems that you might—just might—be able to solve in a simple and easy way.

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Remote Policies That Do (and Don’t) Transition Well to In-House Operations

The COVID-19 pandemic is still in full swing, and while many companies buckled under the pressure put on them to maintain operations, others have managed to adapt through the use of remote technology solutions. Businesses have put into place policies surrounding this remote technology, many of which are both helpful and harmful.

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Get the Apps You Need in the Cloud

When it comes to your desktop infrastructure, your company has several different options available to it, one of which is Desktop-as-a-Service. How does this option compare to having a traditional workstation, and why might a small business get value out of Desktop-as-a-Service? Let’s take a closer look at what DaaS involves.

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Tip of the Week: Easy Windows 10 Screenshots

There is one key on the keyboard that might seem a little odd: PrtScn. It’s not immediately obvious what this key does or why you would want to use it, but we assure you that it is an extremely helpful keyboard shortcut once you understand how it works and why you might want to try it out. In reality, the PrtScn key (on some keyboards it might just be PrtSc) is important for taking screenshots on your Windows device.

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Is the Cloud Over Complicating Your Business?

Most everyone uses the cloud in some capacity, even if it’s not a professional one. Simply put, the value it provides even on a consumer level is astounding, and this is even more so with business applications. The cloud makes it much easier for organizations to manage their resources compared to hosting them in-house, but a problem has surfaced with some companies suffering due to what’s called “cloud sprawl.”

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Hybrid Work Can Keep Your Workforce Together

Ever since employees began returning to the office after getting a taste of remote work, there has been an ongoing war between employers wishing a return to normalcy and the employees who would rather get their work done from the comforts of their own home. Now, a new survey indicates that half of employees would rather quit than deal with an employer who mandates a return to the office environment.

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