NetWorthy Systems Blog

Did you know? Microsoft reported in May that every one in 14 downloads from the Internet may now contain malware code. Keeping your business protected is extremely important. Fortunately there are plenty of tools out there that do most of the protecting for you, but these tools need to be managed and kept up to date.

"Change your battery or switch to outlet power immediately." This is one of the dreaded warnings for any Windows user. No one likes to be interrupted while on a laptop only to be informed that his or her battery is about to die. Is there anything we can do to better save our battery life? The answer is Yes. Here are some simple tips on how to maximize your Windows laptop battery performance.

A lot of Golden Triangle small businesses are taking advantage of regular proactive maintenance that keeps their servers and workstations in tip-top shape much longer than their typical lifespan. Amazing amounts of money are saved on new hardware and downtime and everything is just peachy! You've been able to run that old server for years and you have workstations that are still chugging away on Windows XP. What you don't know is that your old technology, even if it is in perfect working order, could be drastically slowing things down for your business.

Some companies go to great lengths to make sure their backup is up to date. Data is extremely important, and yet fragile. There are so many situations that can cause data loss, is your backup solution ready?

Everyone here at NetWorthy Systems would like to wish our clients a happy and safe Halloween! We'd like to share a couple computer and tech support horror stories to set today's spooky mood!  Get out your flashlights and gather around the campfire for these chilling tales that could happen to any small business.

As a business owner, if you've ever looked into training seminars, you've probably been taken back by the price. Your industry likely has a whole slew of organizations dedicated to business training, and there are often training courses on specific software packages you use in your day-to-day line of business. Your employees may know full-well how to do their job, but are they doing it as effectively as possible in order to drive business forward?

One of the questions we get fairly often is what are the benefits for a small business switching to a managed IT service as opposed to a break-fix-style relationship. When a new client calls upon us to resolve an issue or organize an IT project we talk to them about our proactive managed services, and often we get a reply like "Well we love your service, but we'll just call you when something is broke." Managed services offer a lot of stability and benefits for small businesses. What exactly can switching to a proactive managed services agreement with your IT provider do for your business?

Software is expensive, especially business critical software. On top of that, as a small business expands, more software licenses need to be purchased for new employees. Organizations such as the Software & Information Industry Association and the Business Software Alliance are always looking for businesses that are guilty of stealing software, and businesses that get busted get hefty fines exponentially higher than the price of the software licenses.

In today's IT industry, downtime can have a huge impact on your company's bottom line. When system downtime occurs, whether it affects an individual employee or the entire company, it means lost money. The definition of the term "downtime" is very ambiguous, although at NetWorthy Systems we consider any issue where an employee can't do their job properly due to technology not being available to be downtime. Even though an application may be up and running, it is essentially "down" to a user if the application can't be used no matter the reason.

Email has integrated itself into the way we do business.  If you use Outlook as your primary email client, there are plenty of tricks you can do to increase your productivity and practice better email etiquettes.

For small and medium businesses, attempting to fix your own computer issues can do more harm than good. It may seem like having to pay for IT services is an unnecessary expense, especially when you have a somewhat tech savvy employee who seems to know what they are doing. It may be an expense now, but it will save you thousands of dollars in time and money in the long run.

Saving a little on your technology can go a long ways, but cutting too many corners can lead to additional problems and expensive downtime. Here are a few ways you can cut costs without creating long term issues.

Businesses are inundated with information, programs and quick solutions on making companies green. Some of these suggestions can be implemented today, others my take more time. However, going green, can save your organization significant amounts of money. Wasted paper, plastic cups and wasted electricity are all money literally thrown away.  Here a few suggestions to get you off on the right foot:

Global Payments, a credit card processing firm, announced that as many as 1.5 million credit card numbers were stolen due to a security breach last month. Issues like this seem more and more common place in the news and it is important to know what to do if you suspect that your credit card has been hacked.

Losing your smartphone can be a blood-chilling experience. The rush of worry, followed by the frantic dash around the last couple of places you've been searching high and low for your phone when you thought you put it in your pocket. The slow, creeping fear that your phone has been stolen before you could return to the place you left it. Well, for Android OS users, they now have a backup plan.

Do you have confidence in your company backup solution? If your servers went down now, would you be able to rely on the data you have backed up? No matter how advanced or in-depth your backup system is, you won't know if it works unless you test it. If you don't test your backup system, how can you have confidence in it?

Email has integrated itself into the way we do business.  If you use Outlook as your primary email client, there are plenty of tricks you can do to increase your productivity and practice better email etiquettes.

Small business owners are discovering they don't need to be chained to their desk to use their computer, and are finding it much easier to be productive with the ability to take their workstation with them where ever they go. The concept isn't new, but the trend hasn't caught on for a lot of small businesses. Business owners who have ditched their desktop for a laptop have a whole world of benefits. Let's take a look at what some of those benefits are.

Virtualization isn't new for small businesses, some companies have been enjoying the benefits of server virtualization for many years. However, the concept is new to other growing organizations. Virtualization allows you to consolidate the number of servers you have in your company using one of several virtualization packages. Let's take a look at a few major reasons to consider server virtualization.

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.