An expiration date helps to make sure you aren’t buying fast-turning foods at the grocery store, and now, the technology industry is making strides to establish a similar standard. A new industry report recommends new legislation pushing for End-of-Life (EoL) disclosure, which would, in theory, allow businesses and consumers alike to make more informed purchasing decisions. What does this mean for your business?
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Technology is the cornerstone of most modern business operations, making supporting this technology more important than ever. That’s one reason we’re so proud to provide IT assistance to our fellow businesses.
As we’ve done so, however, we’ve noted that some assistance is required more often than other forms of support. Let’s go over what some of these usual suspects are, and why it is so helpful to have someone (ideally, us) assisting you in managing them.
One of the biggest things that businesses need to consider today, from an IT front, is how artificial intelligence fits in. One way many companies are integrating AI into their businesses is through chatbot technology. Today, we will tell you everything you need to know to get started with chatbot technology.
Running a small business comes with many challenges: managing customers, handling inquiries, scheduling appointments, and marketing your services, just to name a few. While these tasks are mandatory for the creation of a successful business, they can also be extraordinarily time-consuming. That’s where chatbots come in.
Skype, once a popular and beloved video chat platform, has reached the end of its rope (in a manner of speaking). Microsoft is discontinuing the 20-year-old communication application, instead focusing its efforts on Microsoft Teams. The last update to Skype will be on May 5, but that doesn’t change the impact Skype had on the development of modern communication tools.
Smart speakers have been around for a while, but let’s be honest—they haven’t exactly changed the world. Sure, they’re great for playing music, setting timers, and answering random trivia questions, but beyond that? Not much has evolved. So, how did we get here, and what’s next? More importantly, can they actually be useful for businesses, or are they just another gadget collecting dust?
Running a business is basically a never-ending series of potential disasters just waiting to happen. Some are easy to fix, change a process here, tweak a strategy there—but others? They can completely derail your operations if you’re not prepared. That’s where smart technology steps in to save the day.
Let’s look at some nightmare scenarios that could spell disaster unless you have the right IT in place.
The entire purpose of modern IT is to improve the processes that work requires us to do. Today, we wanted to address a few business priorities—productivity, cybersecurity, and accessibility—that the right tech can help you accomplish, explicitly exploring how different tools can contribute to your success.
If I were to ask you what technology your business possessed and where it all was right now, could you give me an answer? If not, you’ve demonstrated the importance of keeping an accurate inventory of your business’ IT.
So, let’s go over some best practices to make managing your business’ IT inventory more effective.
New technology is always a bit intriguing. It can also be scary for some. Business owners typically only see the cost, even if it presents solutions to their organizational problems and can err on the side of caution as to not too much strain on their budget. There are a couple of really cutting-edge technologies businesses can use today that can help them confront problems they have. Let’s take a look at them in today’s blog.
With so many devices connecting to the Internet, it’s natural that a term would emerge for devices that don’t typically have Internet connection, but nowadays do anyway: the Internet of Things. Businesses can leverage the IoT to take advantage of incredible benefits, but these devices come with an inherent security risk. Why does the IoT matter for businesses, and what can you do to keep your organization secure?
Net neutrality has long been an embattled topic, with rules flipping every few years depending on the opinions of those with influence. Recently, the Federal Communications Commission had its most recent net neutrality policy struck down by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals… in such a way that sets the concept back to square one.
Let’s discuss why this is a particularly dangerous decision, and very well could put small and medium-sized businesses at a distinct disadvantage moving forward.
For years, the telephone has been one of the most tried-and-true business communications solutions, and that trend will continue into 2025. If you’re still using the phone solutions of the past, however, you’ve got some upgrading to do. Here’s what you need to know about the best communications investment you can make: Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.
As a provider of information technology services and support, a big part of our job is helping the businesses we work with make the best decisions regarding their critical IT. This responsibility means we often provide an advisory role to business leaders.
In that role, we strongly advise that you make any intended technology purchases and upgrades right now… because if you wait, you may have no good options left.
Do you ever feel at home in your business’ server room? That is, assuming you have a server room, and it’s more than just a stuffy closet in an isolated part of your office. If you’re not confident that you can provide your servers with the management, maintenance, and monitoring they need, we recommend you work with a managed IT company to ensure you get the most value you can from your server units.
The new year is generally associated with fresh starts and new opportunities. One opportunity that will continue to demonstrate and expand upon what it can do for businesses is the Internet of Things, also known as the IoT.
Let’s take a few moments to break down what the IoT is and—more importantly—what it can help you and your organization accomplish throughout 2025 and beyond.
Computer problems can be super frustrating, especially when they slow you down while working. Many times, it is something that can be fixed quickly, but then there are issues that an experienced IT professional has to address. Let’s take a look at some of the most common computer problems professionals run into.
With technology becoming more mobile, the way we interact with tech has changed considerably. Now that dial-up has evolved to broadband and cellular networks have dramatically improved, technology has allowed people to become more connected than ever. Your business can improve its communications and operations with the right mobile technology.
One of the many tasks undertaken by the United Nations is to protect human rights around the globe while also working to create more sustainable and climate-friendly development. As such, the UN has recently taken a healthy interest in the development of artificial intelligence, hoping to develop guidelines that allow us to get the most value out of AI without creating more significant problems.
Digital storage has exploded, in no uncertain terms, over the last few decades. While hard disk drives (HDDs) were the predominant storage format for most of that time, today’s faster and hardier solid-state drives (or SSDs) are becoming more affordable and popular.
However, there are still plenty of HDDs out there, all far more prone to breaking than their more advanced counterparts. So, how can you tell when a hard drive failure is pending?
We have frequently espoused the benefits of data backups, referring to how critical they are should your business experience a disaster at any scale. However, there is always the concern that your backups could also be altered negatively. This is one reason that immutable backups exist.
Let’s take a few moments to examine the concept of an immutable backup and its benefits.
With mobile devices being such a big part of doing business, It’s crucial that your business has a plan to manage them. Many times this comes with a lot of hand-wringing. One of the biggest issues is whether or not the business invests in their employee mobility or if they simply demand that they gain use of employee-owned devices. In today’s blog we’ll go through the mobile management strategies of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled (COPE).
Your computer has a brain, of sorts, in its CPU… a tiny square that literally enables everything the device does, as it processes billions of instructions at a time. Of course, to support this on such a relatively tiny piece of hardware, most CPUs are packed with microscopic transistors—these transistors being small enough to fit hundreds on a single blood cell.
As you might imagine, this means things can go wrong pretty easily… and gone wrong, things have. Many newer computers are suffering from a bug that could cause permanent damage to the CPU… and if you don’t take steps fast, it could be too late.
Software fuels most businesses nowadays, even the small shops down the street. Depending on the size and scope of the business, however, managing software can be complex and downright unfun. Today, we want to highlight a type of tool that your business can find great value in: a software management solution.
Every business relies on technology for at least part of its operations. This means that every business—particularly those with operations that make IT an essential part of the process—will need access to some form of IT support.
For most small and medium-sized businesses today, managed IT is the best option. Let’s discuss a few reasons why this is.
With technology being such a massive part of business today, many organizations are looking to use it to their advantage. One aspect of the business that is increasingly significant is their ability to stand out amongst their competition. Let’s take a look at a few technologies that can improve your organizational marketing efforts.
Businesses are constantly trying to find a way to best use their data. Whether it is creating a business intelligence strategy, integrating artificial intelligence, or for simple analytics, without having accurate, reliable data, the insights you derive can be misleading and end up costing you. That’s why it is important to know how to scrub or clean your data. Having access to clean data is essential for anyone involved in business intelligence or AI. Today, we will discuss the issue and give you a simple guide to help you get started.
A successful business thrives on building beneficial relationships, which generates a lot of data and contracts that need to be efficiently shared and stored. While this might seem straightforward, leveraging today’s technology can significantly cut down on filing costs and enhance file-sharing efficiency. Let’s explore how.
With little fanfare, the AI Wars have begun. When we say “war” we mean just that: a battle for the survival of tools designed to improve human productivity. To start we should rewind a little. Most new software platforms (and many, many established ones) have started to use “artificial intelligence” to improve their products, or at least improve the prospect of selling them. In this week’s blog we will discuss the increased prevalence of “AI” and how some of the largest names in computing have gone all in on the technology.
When someone mentions cookies, people start paying attention. Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodles… Browser? While Browser cookies aren’t the most scrumptious, they do need some attention. Nowadays, many websites you visit have a popup asking if they want to allow cookies for that site and knowing what you are agreeing to is important. In today’s blog, we will describe what cookies are, how they work, and why they can sometimes be better than cookies with chocolate chips.
Everyone knows that a telephone system is a core component of a well-functioning business. Unfortunately, many businesses’ telephone systems haven’t advanced, but the way people do business has. If your business is paying a premium for its telephone system and isn’t getting the collaboration benefits needed to stay competitive, the answer might be VoIP.
The past several years have brought about dramatic increases in internet speeds, further fueling online activity and allowing businesses to innovate in all kinds of ways. Here are five of the best benefits that these increased Internet speeds have brought about for small and medium-sized businesses.
You can’t take two steps outside of your home or two mouse-clicks or screen-taps online without seeing something written or hearing someone talking about AI. This has created a situation where every business is claiming AI as a revolutionary tool and consumers, overwhelmed with the term, have begun to take the technology for granted. In today’s blog, we want to determine whether AI brings added value or is just a term used to help companies market their products.
Today’s businesses have more technology involved in their processes than ever, making it essential to have access to the support that will keep them in operation. Nowadays, that kind of support is best obtained through a relationship with a managed service provider.
Now, I feel it is appropriate to acknowledge that all this is coming from a managed service provider… but that’s just because we feel strongly enough about the benefits of managed services to offer them over the traditional approach to business IT support and services.
Data is at the heart of all successful modern businesses. The information you collect and store can help you make better decisions, plan better strategies, and gain a competitive advantage. Let’s look at how your raw data can be refined into more meaningful insights through the use of business analytics tools.
Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is a technology that enables phone calls over the Internet. It offers a modern alternative to traditional phone lines with various advantages, like cost savings and advanced features. VoIP is revolutionizing business communication and is an essential tool for today's organizations, particularly with the rise of remote work. Here's why it's so popular among modern businesses.
Business can get messy, particularly when variables outside your control are involved, which could spell doom for your organization. We’re talking, of course, about instances where your organization might be under a particularly large threat—instances where your data is at risk, which could jeopardize your future. Thankfully, there are options to mitigate this risk.
There's a lot of pressure on (often understaffed and overworked) internal IT teams to manage and maintain increasingly complex systems. For businesses noticing signs of strain on their IT staff, seeking assistance from managed services providers (MSPs) could be the remedy. Here's how an MSP like us can alleviate the pressure and contribute to workplace wellness for all.
Nowadays, finding a business that does not use technology in its everyday processes would be extremely challenging. That’s just how things are today. This technology also typically sees advances in capabilities and accessibility, particularly for the small and medium-sized business sectors. This year, 2024, seems poised to be no exception.
Professional services make up a significant portion of the business landscape. They can be broadly defined as any organization with trained professionals at the center offering a service of note. The most common professionals under this umbrella term are lawyers, agents, consultants, and others who help businesses in their day-to-day operations. Let’s explore some of the technology that fuels professional service providers.
Augmented reality is one of the more intriguing technologies that have come along in recent years, and businesses have begun to use it in pretty interesting ways. In today’s blog, we thought we’d go through three of the most popular and effective use cases of AR and the effect it can have on your business.
Ensuring that your organization's file-sharing policies and procedures are built to enhance security can significantly impact collaboration, distinguishing between efficient, streamlined processes and time-purging, wasteful practices. Navigating this terrain can be a challenge. Let’s explore several best practices your organization can adopt to optimize file-sharing.
More small and medium-sized businesses than ever are seeing AI's potential to transform their operations. However, like any technology, AI has its own set of pros and cons. Let's discuss three major advantages and drawbacks you can expect if using it in your business. Hopefully, it helps you make an informed decision about adopting AI.
Running a business has definite highs and lows. When things start spiraling seemingly out of control, it’s important to maintain the confidence that with the right decision-making and conscientious action, you can get through any problem that a business faces. In today’s blog, we’ll discuss some of the technology that can help you get through tough situations.
How can you know when your organization should upgrade its technology infrastructure? The truth is that it’s not always immediately obvious when you should do so, as there are countless factors in play to consider at any given time. Today, we want to help your business determine when to bite the bullet and upgrade your technology.
As necessary as technology is in modern business operations, a variety of common IT-related obstacles must be overcome for your efforts to succeed. Fortunately, partnering with a managed service provider (MSP) can make these obstacles less “mountain” and more “molehill.” Let’s examine some of the most often seen business technology challenges and discuss how a relationship with an MSP helps alleviate them.
Your Android smartphone is a computer in and of itself; as such, it runs with an operating system installed. You install programs on your smartphone the same way you install them on your computer, although the process is more complicated. Today, we want to explain the types of files that the Android operating system uses to install apps on your phone, as well as why it might be a good idea to let the Google Play Store do the hard work for you, in terms of locating and installing apps.
In business technology, automation reigns supreme, especially for tedious tasks that offer little to the individual performing them. Remote management epitomizes such tasks, and strategic automation can greatly enhance organizational productivity. Let’s examine how automation can help you stay proactive.
Do you have employees who struggle with their technology? Chances are that there will always be individuals who are not as proficient with it as you might expect, and without a dedicated IT resource to ask for assistance, they might get frustrated and disengage with their work. You need to provide the right support to your employees, and you’re in luck; we have just the right solution to your problems: a help desk!
The modern workplace wouldn’t exist as it does without the advent of wireless Internet or Wi-Fi. Understanding how your wireless router works can be incredibly helpful for any business owner, and it can help you get even more out of your wireless connection. Today, we want to share some information about wireless routers that can help you use them more effectively.
A business telephone system has picked up some pretty costly requirements over the past several years. Not only does your business need to have a clear and concise calling system internally, it needs to incorporate video conferencing and remote communications. This can get pretty costly if you don’t have the right technology in place. That right technology is VoIP and it can save your business money and present options that allow your employees seamless communication capabilities.
The cloud is a remarkable innovation that businesses of all industries and sizes can utilize to scale growth and operations. How you use the cloud, though, will change depending on your company's specific pain points and requirements. How can you invest in a cloud solution that ticks all your boxes? It starts with assessing whether you want to utilize a public, private, or hybrid cloud infrastructure.
Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) are incredibly important elements of any successful business, as without them, you’re just one disaster away from a world-shattering wake-up call. We take a strategic approach to data backup and disaster recovery that considers your daily data backup needs while recognizing its long-term benefits. Let’s discuss how you can ensure that your business can use BDR to survive any potential threat the world throws at it.
With communication rising to the top of many businesses’ priorities list, it’s no wonder that Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is one of the most powerful ways to revitalize your company’s communications infrastructure. If you’re still using your old traditional telephony solution, buckle up because you’re about to find out how to ditch it for good.
Whether you know how it works or not, your business has an internal network that connects all of its computing infrastructure and resources. Today, we want to take a moment to demystify some of the common networking equipment you might have on-premises and what it all does to contribute to your business’ continued success.
It’s easy to look at a power strip and a surge protector and question if there’s anything that actually makes them different. After all, they both give you extra plugs, right?
Yes, but there’s more to it than just that. Let’s review some of the important differences between the two that make one a far better choice for your business’ power delivery needs.
Information technology—IT—is a necessity for the vast majority of modern businesses to function. For the sake of these businesses and their operations, it pays to optimize this IT by any means available.
Let’s go over the benefits that a relationship with a managed service provider gives businesses, particularly regarding the overall efficiency these businesses see as a result.
Small businesses, like any other organization, need to protect various types of data to ensure the security and privacy of their operations. The specific data that needs protection may vary depending on the nature of the business, industry regulations, and the types of transactions or customer interactions. Today, we thought we would go through some common data types that small businesses typically need to protect.
A digital twin could arguably be seen as a somewhat niche technological innovation. Regardless, they are an invaluable resource to quite a few industries that help the businesses that use them optimize their processes. Let’s go over what a digital twin is, and how it helps a few different business types meet their needs.
The entire point of modern technology is to make things easier. Businesses don’t invest in computers and software simply to throw away money—technology exists to streamline operations and help you get more done in less time.
Let’s look at some of the standard technologies your business should consider to gain more value out of your technology.
There are rules for doing business that most people understand. That status quo has been around for a long, long time, but as technology advances, it does more than connect parts that weren’t connected before; it can break down some of the old notions about the ways businesses are run and give people who think outside the box a leg up going forward. Let’s look at three ways business leaders are innovating how they do business.
As conditions within your business change, it’s likely that your plans might need to change before their end results come to fruition. The decisions you made last fiscal year, or even last quarter, might no longer be relevant due to the rapid pace of evolution that happens with business technology. Let’s go over how you can get the appropriate technology solutions for your business without falling behind.
With the blockchain growing more popular as a technology, we thought it would be good to discuss how it works and why you should be aware of it. The zeitgeist often portrays it as a nefarious tool used by cryptocurrency and scams, but at its core, it is far from this; in fact, the applications of such a decentralized and transparent technology make it ideal for certain tasks. Let’s explore them.
Small businesses seemingly always need to take a long look at the way they do things because they need to be as efficient as possible to carve out a market share. This often means using technology to make everything work. There are many different types of technologies that can help any SMB build more efficient operations, but the two we will outline in today’s blog, are two technologies that are probably doing the most to help SMBs improve.
We’ve seen the conference rooms of a lot of businesses, from the modified break-room with stale coffee to immaculate lecture rooms with plush, comfy seats, and everything in between.
A good conference room can do a lot to impress potential clients and customers, encourage collaboration within your team, and leave a great impression on potential employees too. While we’re not going to pretend to be interior decorators, there are definitely some important steps that we can assist with to make sure your conference room is up to the task.
Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has become a bona fide buzzword amongst businesses of all sizes, with 97% of respondents to a Forbes survey seeing a potential benefit in some way, shape, or form. However, with it being integrated everywhere in our modern lives, it is important that we remember that AI is still a human invention, as such, it is vulnerable to our own implicit biases.
Laptops have emerged as the predominant workstations in the business landscape. While laptops offer unparalleled convenience, their batteries seem to be on a perpetual decline in terms of performance. This phenomenon is influenced by various factors, and the extent of battery life problems can differ based on hardware or circumstances. Today, we take a look at some of the reasons why laptop batteries aren’t performing as well as users expect.
AI has unquestionably emerged as the standout technology of the year, and it was only a matter of time before Microsoft entered the arena with its own enterprise-ready AI platform. The introduction of Microsoft CoPilot has sparked a fair amount of confusion and left many questions unanswered, so today our aim is to shed light on what CoPilot is and explain the value you can expect to get out of the new Microsoft AI.
Laptops have become the most utilized workstations in business. Laptops are great, but their batteries are seemingly getting worse all the time. This is influenced by several factors, and it can vary significantly depending on the specific model and usage patterns, but we thought we’d go through some of the reasons why laptops seem to die quickly.
Your business’ backup and disaster recovery preparations are a critical part of your continued success as an organization, specifically, how they are measured by two key metrics: your recovery time objective (RTO) and your recovery point objective (RPO).
However, it’s important that you are able to determine what your organization can support in terms of your recovery time and recovery point objectives… but how does one do that?
Love them or hate them, self-service checkout registers in brick-and-mortar stores are here to stay… especially considering that research has demonstrated that Gen Z has about twice the level of buy-in to the automated point-of-sale terminals as Gen X does, and that self-checkout is the predominant form of payment today. With this success, many have wondered how welcome biometric payment processing might be.
As it turns out, it would seem it isn’t.
While artificial intelligence is frequently hyped up to the point that it seems to be plucked from the realm of science fiction, its true applications are actually much more mundane. That being said, these applications are often the ones that show the most promise in terms of the value they have to offer society.
For instance, let’s consider the work that Google is doing through something called Project Green Light.
With data security being a hot commodity with hackers, it’s no surprise that businesses want to do everything they can to protect their assets. One method for doing so is implementing a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, that can effectively obfuscate data while it’s in transit. Let’s go over some of the most valuable reasons why your business should be using a VPN.