We talk a lot about smartphones and tablets as business tools, but these days more and more people are using high-end devices personally. It's likely that they are bringing these devices in to work, and often using them to become more productive at their job. We call this Bring-Your-Own-Device, or BYOD, and it isn't a bad thing. The catch is managing security risks when users are using their own personal gadgets.
Business owners and executives aren't always chained to their desk. Sometimes opportunities take you out of the office, out of town, and on the road. Traveling to vendor shows, conferences, training, expos, or even hitting the greens for a few days doesn't mean you need to be totally inaccessible. It's becoming increasingly simple to for the traveling business person to stay connected and get things done even when not at the office.
There are plenty of terrible ways businesses can suffer from data loss; the inevitable failed hard drive, electrical disturbances, human error, viruses, fires, floods, earthquakes - you name it. That's what backup is for, right? If you are running (and managing) a tape backup system, and keeping the backups off site, what could possibly go wrong? Today we investigate one of the leading causes of data loss. It will shock you.
Do you know what others are saying about you online? Keeping track of your online reputation is very important for businesses of any size; and you'd be surprised what people are saying about you. Using the free service Google Alerts, you can get notifications whenever Google finds something new about you on the internet.
Last time, we blogged about whether or not social media and personal Internet use was a bottleneck for employee productivity. Let's not look at the Internet as a fundamental time-waster or a necessary evil. After all, the Internet has changed the way companies do business. This time we're going to investigate if your Internet is keeping up with your company.
The words Productivity and Internet have been fit together in many different sentences, and usually in the sense that the Internet is a Productivity-killer. Take Facebook, for example; there are many arguments stating that Facebook is costing companies billions of dollars because employees are spending too much time on the social network while at work. Of course, Facebook (and the other social networks) are practically mandatory for businesses who want to market themselves. Other companies are clamoring that personal social media use greatly improves productivity and employee moral.
Want to look like a PC Pro and get more done faster? With these simple tips, you'll have the skills to impress your co-workers with a few keystrokes. The Windows 7 Taskbar is the menu bar that stretches along (typically) the bottom of your screen. These are some lesser-known productivity tips to streamline your Windows 7 experience.
Plenty of our clients use Remote Desktop to access a terminal server or use their workstation from an off-site location. Depending on your connection and the speed of all of the devices in question, remote work can either be pretty seamless or a laggy, sluggish endeavor if your Remote Desktop client isn’t configured correctly. If you are running into a situation where you type something on your keyboard and it takes several long seconds for it to show up, these tweaks can improve performance and reduce input delays.
First you’ll want to open the Remote Desktop Client. You can find that under Programs > Accessories on the Start Menu. Click on Remote Desktop and then click Options on the window that comes up.
Cans of compressed air are no stranger to many households today. They can be used in a variety of different ways, but, most notably, they can be used to perform light maintenance on your computer. Whether you use a laptop or a desktop, a can of air can clean parts of your computer that, if left unchecked, could lead to costly repairs.
Dust is one of the leading causes of hardware malfunction for computer equipment. Dust can blanket the heat-producing components and restrict airflow, trapping enough heat to cause damage. Fans and vents can get clogged which will prevent your device from cooling properly, which can drastically reduce the life of your technology.
While search engines aren't as frustrating as they were in the late 90's. Searching for something can still be a time consuming task if you don't know how to use the tools available to you in search engines that can cut down the amount of time you'll spend searching. Google is similar to a library's catalog, except you're not searching through thousands of books; instead you are searching through millions upon millions of websites. How do you sift through this giant pile of information to find what you need? Learning a few simple techniques can help you find the information you need fast.
It's the start of the 2011 hurricane season, and with Hurricane Irene making contact with Atlantic coastlines this week, it certainly doesn't hurt to make sure your business is prepared for a disaster. Even if you are lucky enough to not be affected by these devastating storms, there are plenty of opportunities for nature to cause havoc on our way of life. It's never to late to put together a Disaster Recovery Plan (alternatively known as a Business Continuity Plan) in case a natural (or otherwise) disaster were to occur for you. Nobody wants to think a disaster might happen, but it isn't impossible. Here are a few steps small businesses can take to become better prepared.
Don't you hate it when you contact us for tech support with a strange issue, and then you can't recreate it? Don't feel bad. It happens all the time, even to us. Sometimes those rarely occurring issues can't be fixed unless you get some photographic evidence of what's going on. This quick guide will show you how to take screenshots of your desktop.
Looking to increase your effectiveness by reducing the time it takes you to perform simple tasks on your computer? In today's Quick Tip, we're going to cover a couple ways to access the directories you need to access the most so you don't need to hunt for them to access your files.
USB thumb drives are fantastic. Small, portable, fast, and highly compatible; these devices make it easy to transfer files and documents from one place to another. If you are burning the midnight oil working on a presentation or document from home, a thumb drive is a fast, cheap solution for grabbing those files and taking them from one device to another. Of course, there are plenty of other alternate ways to move files that are even easier and even more fool proof (how many of you have lost a thumb drive or let one go through the wash?), so the thumb drive has been becoming less popular for businesses. If you hate to see perfectly good technology go to waste, check out these 3 tricks that give new life to your old thumb drive.
I have finally taken some much-needed time off. The family and I are taking a week to spend some time in Florida. To be sure, I'll never officially stop working, even on vacation. But this reminded me of something that all small business owners deal with: namely overworking oneself. Remember to take some time off with family regularly. Assign your tasks to someone else temporarily, or plan for the downtime with your customers in advance. The point is, everybody needs time away from their business, even the most hardcore type A's need downtime. Just taking the time off and only checking in once a day with the office has helped me tremendously. It's allowed me to get the creative juices flowing again, and put the priorities back in order. The net effect? While some things may not get done quite as fast while I'm off, in the end everybody benefits, as I'll be back in the office refocused, rejuvenated, refreshed and ready to take care of my clients' IT needs. So don't forget to take the occasional time off with the family. It's actually good for business!
If you use email, you've probably seen spam. If you think we're talking about a canned meat product, and are wondering how it relates to email, then we envy you. For everyone else, saying your inbox probably has a little spam is a dramatic understatement.
Spam comes in several different flavors; ranging to inappropriate solicitations to unwanted gibberish to carefully coordinated scams. We're going to go over one of these tricky spoofs that is known to fool users.
RAID, you hear it everywhere. From the techs in the server room talking about it to computer manufacturers asking if you want a RAID formation for your computer's hard drive. Not all RAID configurations are considered equal. Here's an explanation of RAID formats in plain English.
At the beginning of the month, Microsoft officially launched Office 365. What makes this Office different from the other Office suites that Microsoft has released is that Office 365 doesn't run on your computer, it runs on a cloud server. All of your data is stored securely in the cloud on Microsoft's servers. This is great for smaller Beaumont or Baytown businesses that need to access their files from anywhere but don't currently have the infrastructure in-house to make it happen.
You've probably heard of cloud technology. All the big names in the technology industry are talking about it; but for a lot of people, it's still just a buzz word. Microsoft has been pushing the idea of a cloud for a while, with a couple sitting at an airport waiting for a layover, with the end result being that the cloud ceases their boredom by letting them stream movies from home. What exactly is the cloud and why does it matter for businesses?
The Internet giant Google is well know as being the primary search engine on the Internet and the definer of many web standards. The Big G isn't afraid to trek into new and exciting verticals. Google Wallet is one of those endeavors. Google states that Google Wallet has been designed for an open commerce ecosystem. Their goal is to eventually replace the cards that you keep in your wallet. Since Google wallet is a mobile application it can store as many cards as you want without having to carry multiple cards.