Directive Blogs

Of all the technology that you have in the office, your printers may not be at the top of your list of security concerns. This is a mistake, as an unprotected printer could easily serve as an access point to someone with less-than-righteous motives. To help correct this, we’re dedicating this week’s tip to improving the security of your printing solutions.

You can make more money, but you can’t make more time. Making the most of your time at work isn’t always easy. There are all types of unexpected distractions that take up a lot of time, so you should know what works to help you get the most out of the time you do have. Today, we present three considerations that will help you manage your time better.

Recent events have shown how useful a remote workforce can prove to be, but this method of maintaining productivity isn’t without its challenges. For instance, a staff that is used to working side-by-side in an office may have difficulties in adjusting to this new work paradigm. Fortunately, there are a few company activities that can help make better remote habits stick. Let’s go over a few for this week’s tip.

While it seems that some business will best be conducted remotely for some time yet, it is still very important to start planning for a return to in-house operations now. This will help them to hit the ground running when the floodgates open back up. For this week’s tip, we’re going over how to return to the office after working remotely, while also reviewing some best practices for adjusting to remote work (just in case).

If you were to look at any company’s list of priorities, chances are that “productivity” could be found somewhere at the top of the list. Current circumstances being what they are and many processes shifting as a result, this productivity is likely more of a challenge than normal. As any bit of saved time can increase productivity, we’re dedicating this week’s tip to a minor change you can make to accomplish this goal.

Everyone knows some keyboard shortcuts. The normal ones that allow you to copy, cut, paste, lock your computer, select all, and more. Today, we thought we would tell you about some browser-based shortcuts that can definitely save you time and effort. 

Nowadays, laptops are the weapon of choice for productivity. They function much like a desktop computer but are mobile enough to go anywhere with. Unfortunately, most laptops chew through their batteries in only a few hours of work and need to be plugged in in order to function. With so many people working from home, many people are using their laptops more like a desktop and keeping them plugged in around the clock. For this week’s tip, we’ll discuss the best practices of a laptop battery. 

With so many things that need to be accomplished each day, it always helps to have all the information needed to complete these tasks. If a task has no context assigned to it or no insight into how to approach it, productivity and morale are going to suffer. To prevent this, you need to properly task out your team’s goals. Here, we’ve provided some practices to help.

Each week, we try to provide some tips to help you out in some way. This time, we want to take a somewhat different approach and instead present you with two potential scenarios that your business could encounter—one with and one without a backup solution in play—and let you see the benefit that our tip this week (protect your business with a backup solution) can present.

Productivity is a huge priority in any business. This makes it crucial that all tasks can be picked up and put down as efficiently as possible. With mobile browsing now playing a major role in most users’ lives, the version of Chrome for Android devices is a very utilized tool. With these factors in mind, we’re sharing tips to make your use of Android Chrome that much more efficient and productive.

Collaboration is critical for a business’ success, but with more teams than ever split amongst their homes, it is arguably even more crucial to their operations. For this week’s tip, we’re going over three ways that your team can collaborate more effectively while making remote operations work.

A strong email solution can bring a great deal of continuity to a business. If it is mismanaged, however, it can quickly become a major pain point. Today, we thought we would go over a couple of ways that you can use your email platform to boost productivity, rather than waste time with it.

Businesses depend on their networks to effectively complete the tasks they need to accomplish, making it critically important that the one you rely on is managed properly. Let’s go over a few tips and best practices that can help you ensure that it is.

There are many different varieties of cybercrime that businesses need to be vigilant about. However, most of these varieties can largely be avoided through a few basic practices and behaviors. Here, we’re giving you a few tips to help you prevent attacks from successfully influencing your business, so make sure you share them with your entire team, as well.

Businesses are just now starting to reopen as stay-at-home orders are lapsing or going to lapse. For many of those businesses, remote solutions have got them through this ordeal and for many others they continue to deploy a remote workforce. For companies still promoting telework, monitoring your local IT environment is something that you need a solution for. For this week’s tip, we’ll discuss some of the best practices you can use to monitor your IT while out of the office.

With the COVID-19 pandemic causing businesses to rethink their operational strategies, many businesses have had to make a quick digital transformation. Many businesses have accomplished this before the stay-at-home orders, but with employees working from home, we thought this was the perfect time to take a look at four tools businesses can use to improve their work-from-home strategies. 

We spend a lot of time on this blog talking about virus avoidance, but today we thought we would go into things you can do to keep another type of virus--specifically COVID-19--away from you and your technology.

“Stuff” happens. While this may not be the kind of thing you want to consider in terms of your business’ operations, it is something that must be done if you want to be prepared for the moment when all of that “stuff” hits the fan (as so many businesses are now learning firsthand). We wanted to share a few best practices and tips to help you stay positive during this, and other, serious crises.

We spend a lot of time considering cloud solutions, and as a result, we have a very easy time seeing how much they can do to help support your office’s productivity (especially now, when it isn’t really recommended that anyone congregate in the office). That’s why, for this week’s tip, we wanted to go over how you can help even your remote workforce be more productive by using cloud technology.

The COVID-19 outbreak has caused many businesses to enact a work-from-home policy. With so many people working from home, we thought it would be a good idea to write up some simple tips to follow to give yourself the best chance of being productive. 

PDFs--Portable Document Format files--are a common enough thing to see. However, many people may not realize the extent of what can be done with them… like editing them. For our tip this week, we’ll go over a few of the ways you can create and edit a PDF file.

Once a mobile device outlives its presumed usefulness, the default assumption is that there is nothing left to do but dispose of it. However, before you do so, reconsider. There may be other ways that your device could show its utility. For today’s tip, we’ll review a few ways that an aged-out smartphone or tablet can still be handy for you (even in the office)!

Windows 10 has been out for almost five years. Now I ask you, have you ever used the Windows 10 Action Center? If the answer is yes, good for you. If the answer is no, it is time to talk about the almost hidden part of Windows 10, and tell you how you can use it to your advantage.

Thanks to the coronavirus, many office workers are working from home to avoid the spread of the virus. For many, this can feel like a nice change of scenery, while others might have a tinge of additional anxiety from it. Regardless of where you stand, working remotely can be both effective and productive, if done right.

There is no denying that a business’ security--notably, its access control--is absolutely crucial to consider. Here, we’re offering a few tips to help you improve your business’ security through improvements to your access controls and their policies.

Google may know a lot, but believe it or not, it doesn’t know everything. For instance, you may be trying to write up a document in Google Docs that Google doesn’t recognize. Maybe it’s one of your services that you’ve created a name for, or even the name of your business. The problem is that Google likes changing words it deems “wrong”. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over how to stop it from changing words you meant to use.

Think about how happy you are when you first get your new phone. If you are like most of us you can’t keep your hands off of it. You try all the new features out and mutter to yourself, “wow, this is so cool”. The enthusiasm that people have for their new mobile devices can be a major benefit for the company they work for, too. Today, we are going to discuss how, with all the features and powerful computing power, you can work effectively on your smartphone.

The modern smartphone has a lot of computing power. It has enough to be a dynamic tool for today’s workers. It can also be a major distraction. Today, we are going to share a couple tips that will help you be more productive with your smartphone. 

The modern business has to deal with a lot of potential security problems. Today’s threat landscape is filled with people looking to prosper off of your misfortune. As a result, doing what you can to maintain the security of your network and data is essential. Today, we will discuss how maintaining your organizational cybersecurity doesn’t have to be costly or time consuming.The best way we’ve found to go about doing this is by highlighting a few key actions that you can take to keep your network secure and your data safe.

The Google Play Store has a massive selection of applications available for users to download. Unfortunately, just because they’re available to be downloaded, doesn’t necessarily mean that they should be downloaded. In fact, many of these apps should be avoided. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over a few categories of application that you shouldn’t download in the first place.

Nowadays a lot of accounts give you the option to set up two-step authorization; and, most of the time you probably should. The security and privacy benefits that your business can gain are substantial. Today, we’ll describe how to enable what Microsoft calls two-step verification. 

Keyboard shortcuts have long been used to move things along faster. In 1994, just about the time that Windows 95 was released, Microsoft produced the new keyboard layout that incorporated the brand-pnew Windows key (or Win Key). When pressed, the Windows Key would immediately open the start menu, which debuted in the software.

Microsoft has a well-developed reputation for creating software that enables users to achieve their work objectives, especially in the business setting. Here, we’re diving into a few capabilities of one such software title, OneDrive, to review some of the features that a user might want to take advantage of.

Slow Internet may be a nuisance in any case, but it has a particularly negative impact on the workplace. Technology should improve your operational efficiency, but if your solutions depend on a connection to the Internet, any issue there can effectively bring your productivity to a halt. In light of this, we wanted to go over a few of the most common issues that might be slowing down your connection, and perhaps tip you off to the problem.

Wi-Fi has swiftly become one of those amenities that we just expect to have, including in the workplace. While it does make work around the office more convenient, it should not be at the cost of your security. To help prevent this, we’re reviewing a few key Wi-Fi security considerations to keep in mind.

The people that support a business’ information systems are widely renowned as a bunch of nerds sitting in a basement office waiting for someone that matters calls them upstairs. Now, we think this characterization is unfair (of course), but since our jobs are so technical, it can be hard to relate with clients all the time. Fortunately for us, the most useful tool we have in our repertoire is excruciatingly simple. To fix your computer problem, have you tried turning it off, and turning it back on? 

With email being such a huge part of doing business, phishing has become a favorite tool of many scammers. To fight back, it is key that you know how to recognize a phishing email, so we’re dedicating this week’s tip to doing just that.

While there aren’t many reasons that you would want to restore your existing Android applications, the ones that do factor in are pretty compelling. Here, we’ll take you through the process of doing just that.

Personal information is precious, especially in this increasingly digital day and age. This makes it incredibly important that you are doing everything you can to protect it in your business - whether it is your own or belongs to somebody else. Here, we’ll go over a few tips to help you better protect the data you’re responsible for.

Quick - when was the last time your routers were updated? Not sure? How about your servers, or every other piece of technology in your office?

The truth is, maintaining a business’ IT requires more than just running a virus scan every once and a while, or updating a mission-critical program on each workstation. It requires an in-depth understanding of each component and its history, assisted by the use of specialized tools and extensive record-keeping.

On a Windows machine, look at your taskbar, near the Start button and the search function. The next little icon, the one that almost looks like a bit of film, is the Task View button, the button that (among other purposes) allows you to create and manage virtual desktops. For this week’s tip, we’ll discuss how to use this handy feature, starting with why you might want to.

One of the most common file types you hear about is the Portable Document Format file - although you probably know it simply as a PDF. PDFs are so well known because they are the best way to save a document so that, regardless of the device it is viewed on, the file will always appear the same. Did you know that you can do more than just look at a PDF? Here, we’re providing some tips on how you can make your PDFs work for you.

A full week into the new year, have you resolved to make any improvements to your business? In light of all the resolutions that may (or may not) have been broken by now, we decided to share a few resolutions you could put into place to improve your business and its processes.

Email is one of the most valuable tools that a business has at its disposal, but even so, its true value can easily be wasted if it isn’t used to its fullest potential. To avoid this, we’ve put together a few of our favorite ways to streamline your business emails - and maybe fix a few bad habits along the way.

The modern cyberattack is more of a slight of hand than it is a direct attack. With encryption protecting a lot of business data, hackers need to find ways to circumvent that technology. They often do this though phishing. This week, we will take a look at some of the warning signs of phishing to help give you a little better awareness. 

Passwords… can be annoying, if we’re being honest. They are, however, also incredibly important to your business’ overall security strategy. We’ve all heard the suggestions on how to create secure passwords. As it turns out, there is more to modern security then that. Let’s explore a few options to help you create useful passwords, and take a look why passwords are only the beginning. 

Any project that your business undertakes will have its success defined by the particular goals you have set for it. This means that each project will be different, its own concerns and considerations coming into play. However, when it comes to managing these projects, most of them benefit from largely the same practices. For this week’s tip, we’re reviewing three that every project should incorporate.

Did you know that, of all the vulnerabilities your business has to cyberthreats, your employees are one of the riskiest, simply due to their exposure to your business technology? If your business isn’t secure, it will become incredibly more difficult to serve your clientele. For today’s tip, we’re breaking down a few ways that you and your employees can positively contribute to your business’ security.

IT inventory management is the process of making sure that your information technology resources are maintained to be their most effective, such as what needs to be updated, which licenses need to be renewed, and whether your resources are helping you accomplish your organizational goals. It is essentially a fancy way of saying asset management, specific to your IT - and it is a very important process for any business.

Emails are a wonderfully useful solution, and quite possibly one of the most commonly used ones in the workplace today. However, not everyone is using every capability that their email solutions offer - and it has led to a lot of time being wasted in the workplace. For this week’s tip, we’ll review how to help cut back on the time spent organizing your emails.

Phishing has quickly become the most predominant form of cyberattack due to the method’s simplicity. It solely relies on a user’s gullibility. The weakest link to any business is typically the employees. In order to protect your business, you and your team need to identify these social engineering cyberattack attempts. Let’s look at a few tips on how to recognize a phishing attempt.

Despite its whimsical name, phishing is a very serious threat to everyone, especially today’s businesses. This means that you need to be prepared to identify its warning signs and avoid risky situations. Here, we’re offering a few tips to help you do so - make sure you share them with your employees as well!

For many tech-savvy individuals, the expression “Google it” is a well-tested, and approved, method to researching. Are you getting the most out of Google search? Today, we share useful tips on how to better optimize your Google search queries.

Many users want to use personal devices in a business setting, but some businesses do not support Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) due to fear of data loss. There are a few options to separate work data, but not restrict users from their own personal apps or data. Today we will look at how your business can take advantage of employees that already having a capable device, and how you can keep them from compromising security.

Budgeting for your technology can be pretty difficult. You never really know when some problem is going to present itself and cost your business an arm and a leg. Since you can’t always see what’s coming, saving money when you can is important. Let’s take a look at a few ways that you can save money on your business’ IT.

If you take a look at any computer in an office environment, there is a solid chance that it is running the Windows operating system. Whenever we have the opportunity, we like to share tips and tricks to help both normal and power users alike get the most out of their operating system. Follow these tips and you’ll be able to make navigating your computer just a little bit easier.

Windows 10 calls on the success (and failures) of previous versions of the operating system to deliver a truly dynamic solution to users. To get the most out of your Windows 10 workstation, we recommend following these five tips. They are simpler than you might think, and you can get unprecedented value out of them.

It’s difficult to put a value on your organization’s technology solutions. While you might be tempted to assign a monetary value based on how much it all saves you, you also need to examine how much it costs you in the long term. Can you optimize your network even more than it currently is? Can you even keep track of the countless moving parts of your IT infrastructure? Managed IT might be able to help.

If you don’t take care of your PC’s files, you will quickly discover that it’s easy to lose track of where everything is. You have countless file types, folders, and applications sitting around without any real sense of organization or continuity. Today, we’re going to focus on how to help you better organize your files in a way that it easy to find and understand. You should be able to do so in either your operating system file explorer or in your cloud-based file storage.

All Windows machines are capable of leveraging built-in shortcuts. While it might sound ludicrous, using keyboard shortcuts can eliminate the eight days that the average employee spends every year moving between the keyboard and mouse. Shocking, right? Keyboard shortcuts let you retake all of that lost time and use it to be more productive.

As you company grows, you will need to invest a good deal of the revenue that you take in to keep operations from falling into complacency. In order to get a good idea what investments would be most advantageous, doing a proactive ROI analysis of project you plan to undertake can put your business in a position to be able to properly anticipate every aspect of a successful project. Let’s take a look at the variables of an ROI analysis.

While it might be nice to imagine making $500 a day by working from home, this is the type of thing only really seen in a website’s spam comments. If these annoyances are common, know that you’re not alone. Even the most innocent sites can be stricken with this issue. So, how can you minimize spam comments?

Windows 10 has officially been released and a healthy number of the Microsoft faithful are upgrading. With a new operating system comes a new set of features and slight changes to how you interact with your PC. To use Windows 10 in the most proficient way possible, you’re going to want to learn these ten keyboard shortcuts.

How fast are you at finding the information you need using Google Search? In today’s data-driven world, knowing how to effectively use Google is actually a marketable skill. Did you know that there are ways in Google Chrome to search for what you need that take less time than typing your query in the search bar?

Windows 10 is here and many users are becoming familiar with their new system and finding out what it can do. Like with any good OS, Windows 10 has advantages over its predecessors. Here are four of our favorite features.

In case you haven’t heard of her, Cortana is Microsoft’s voice assistant for Windows Phone and devices that utilize Windows 10. Just like Siri and Google Now, Cortana can be used for a lot more than simply performing a voice search. Here are six of the great new things Cortana can help you with.

So you’ve got two personal computers and you need to share a file from one to the other. What’s the best way to go about this? You might be surprised to learn that doing this is as easy as dragging and dropping.

One of the most unpleasant aspects regarding email is the anxiety associated with sending an important message. Did the message really send? Has the recipient read it yet? Should I contact them and ask if they got my email? The struggle is real. Thankfully, there’s a Chrome extension designed to alleviate this stress by answering these pressing questions.

For all of you who have Windows 10, you probably have realized that it is, without a doubt, one of the most refined versions of the Windows operating system released by Microsoft in recent years. In a way, it takes the best aspects of Windows 7, combines them with the metro menu from Windows 8, and adds several great new features that improve the user experience. However, not all is well for Windows 10; many users are concerned with some of Windows 10’s questionable data collection policies.

It’s a best practice to avoid placing drinks and food near the computer, but for the busy business owner, this practice is often ignored in preference to getting more work done. While it’s typically extremely unhealthy to forsake your lunch break to continue working, some workers might feel that it’s impossible to get all of their work done without doing so. Inevitably, this leads to everyone’s worst nightmare: spilling a drink, most likely coffee or some kind of soda, on your keyboard.

Revising documents is a task that can take forever, especially when multiple people have to make edits and suggestions. Before you know it, the sidebar will be filled with comments and the text will be so drastically changed that it will feel like you didn’t write it in the first place. In these instances, it might help to view the original document and the new one side by side. Here are two great tools that let you do so.

Today’s workplace productivity has reached a peak, but thanks to this enhanced amount of work, the office environment can often feel hectic and stressful. This usually leads to workers skipping breaks just so that they don’t fall behind. While this maintains the semblance of productivity, it can often lead to a significant decrease in creativity and physical health.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is return to the basics. For example, you can know all of the keyboard shortcuts in the world, but that doesn’t help you properly shut down your computer. Here are three tips for every computer user who wants to make sure that they’re using PC best practices.

Your business’s operations rely on wireless Internet in order to maintain optimal efficiency, and it’s normal to not want to share this private connection with just any stranger that wanders into your office. However, guests or potential clients that visit your office might want a piece of the action, too. It’s clear that you don’t want them accessing your private network, so the natural solution is to integrate a guest wireless hotspot that gives visitors the luxury of Internet without compromising your connection’s security.

Facebook is a powerful networking tool that can help you build relationships with new professionals and introduce your product or service to entirely new markets and groups of people. That is if you know how to use it. Here are five steps you can take to get started with Facebook and use it to build a professional network.

One of the most basic functions that the average Windows user should understand is how to get rid of applications and programs that are unnecessary or potentially threatening. Previous versions of Windows made users jump through hoops to get rid of their unwanted apps and programs, but Windows 10 makes it much easier to do so. In fact, there are three easy ways to eliminate your unnecessary apps and programs.

Your workstation might be designed to save time, but sometimes shaving off seconds doesn’t have to be complicated. A few seconds here and there can really make the difference when it comes time to wrap up a major project. Taking this aspect to a whole new level is the often-forgotten mouse feature, Snap To.

Everyone gets unwanted calls from unsolicited numbers on their smartphone. It’s a part of life. What matters, though, is how you deal with these callers. While a pretty comprehensive solution to this problem can be contacting your provider, some more recent models of Android smartphones have the ability to blacklist phone numbers built right into the device.

Have you ever been in a situation where you have a friend who wants to use your personal computer for who-knows-what? In cases like this, you would want them to use a guest account, so as not to put your personal files at risk. Here’s how you can set it up in all commonly used Windows operating systems.

Listening to the radio is a great way to pass the time during your morning commute, especially if you don’t have a CD player or an auxiliary port in your vehicle. While listening to the radio, you might hear a catchy tune that you want to look up later. Now, thanks to various smartphone apps and technology solutions, you can do it while listening to the song.

Sometimes you might write an email to someone who you’ve never emailed before (perhaps you scrawled down their email while on the phone or at an event), and questioned the authenticity of your recipient’s email address. Those who use email frequently know all too well what this feels like. It makes the most sense to first make sure that you have the right email address before sending a message.

Using GIFs in your digital communications is a great way to enhance them. A GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is an image that loops a few seconds worth of animation and it’s a great way to grab someone's attention. If you don’t know how to make a GIF, then we’ll show you how in this week’s tip!

The mouse is a critical part of navigating your workstation. Without it, you’d struggle to open applications, move around Office documents, create images, and countless other functions. Just like many other features in Windows 10, you can customize how your mouse pointer looks and functions, making it much easier to maneuver around your system.

Your business needs technology to function properly, but it can be unpredictable and challenging to manage. The slightest discrepancy, like an unexpected hardware failure or software hiccup, can throw off your business’s IT budget and potentially cause disastrous downtime. This doesn’t mean that upgrading your hardware and software has to be hard, though.

Gmail is a great email client, but not everyone uses it as their primary method of email communication. Some might prefer Microsoft Outlook, or they might still be using Yahoo Mail. Even if Google wants you to be using their email service, they know that they can’t win them all. For those who want the experience of Gmail without switching providers, you can now do so on the Gmail app for Android.

Have you ever been glued to the computer monitor while compulsively hitting your browser’s refresh button? You might have done this while waiting for an online sale to drop, or while waiting for someone to respond in an online forum to your witty comment. Did you know that you can set your Google Chrome browser to refresh itself automatically?

Safe Mode has long been a troubleshooting method for Windows operating systems, but Windows 10 has done away with the classic method of booting up in Safe Mode. Instead of simply pressing F8 during Windows startup, you now have to go into your settings and manually configure your computer to do so. Here’s how it’s done.

Google Contacts is a useful tool that allows you to share your contacts with other users. In fact, it’s a great tool in general for any professional who is always on the move, and has to have access to a set of work contacts through an Android device. Today, we’ll help you import and export your Google Contacts to a different Google or Outlook account.

Does your business use Google Drive? Google Drive provides several applications that are great for getting work done in the office, similar to Microsoft Office (Want to know the differences? Be sure to contact us). With Drive, there are easy ways to leverage it to your advantage in the form of keyboard shortcuts and other tips and tricks. Here are some of our favorites.

Any business that deals with online technology needs to be aware of the dangers that come with the territory. Hackers are more common nowadays than ever before, and organizations that don’t take a proactive approach to keeping threats out of their systems will have to suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, some organizations won’t be aware that they’ve been hacked until it’s far too late.

Like many mobile devices, iPhones don’t have a slot for an external memory card, which means the device can easily become too full to use. When this happens, pictures can’t be taken and some apps just won’t work. If you’re experiencing this issue with your iPhone, just rent a movie. It works. Seriously.

An active Google user will inevitably accumulate a stockpile of photos and videos via their account’s Google Photos app. For this week’s tip, we’ll show you how to download all of this media to a local device.

Not all Internet search tools are created equal. For example, sometimes you may use a website’s search feature, only to discover that it doesn’t provide the quality of results you’re used to getting from a major search engine like Google Search. When finding yourself in such a predicament, you’ve got a few options to help narrow down your search.

Paper can be incredibly expensive, especially with the quantity that a normal business goes through every single day. However, not only is it expensive on the monetary side, but also on the environmental side as well. By making some changes around your office, you can be more eco-friendly and budget-friendly by reducing the amount of paper waste your organization suffers from.

Does your organization leverage any of Google’s plethora of services or applications to achieve success? Google Assistant can also be a great asset for your organization as it can connect to your smart devices and speakers to create an extremely valuable tool. This week’s tip will discuss some of the best features of Google Assistant and how it can affect your professional environment.

Wi-Fi has been one of the single most useful innovations for the modern office. Connecting to your Internet without having to be physically connected to it via an ethernet wire has been an incredibly freeing process--one that opens up all sorts of possibilities of where (and how) you can get work done. How can you make sure that your Wi-Fi signals are as clear and reliable as possible?

Email is a crucial part of normal business operations, but while email can provide a great medium for communication, sometimes you don’t have time to respond to every single message in a sincere and meaningful way. This is where Gmail’s canned responses come in. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over how you can set up your very own canned responses so that you can cut down on wasted time during your repetitive email communications.

When you need to put together a presentation, chances are that the solution you use is a little thing called Microsoft PowerPoint from the Office suite. It’s a great, user-friendly solution for most purposes, but are you taking advantage of it to the best of your ability? Here are some of the best ways that you can cut out unnecessary steps in PowerPoint.

In case you’re looking for a nice alternative PDF file-editing software, the most recent version of Microsoft Word can do so. Since the investment for Adobe Acrobat isn’t for everyone, you can instead turn to the tried-and-true all-purpose word processing software to edit your PDF files.

It doesn’t matter how good of a service your business provides or how incredible your customer service standards are if your business is lousy at ensuring that payments are received and processed properly. Invoices are an invaluable tool to help ensure your payments due are coming in efficiently. For this week’s tip, we’re examining how to leverage them better.