Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

Imagine working diligently, then being abruptly cut off due to an unpredictable power surge. It would drive anyone to anger, especially if you had just gotten a significant amount of work done. Unfortunately, power surges happen and outages are inevitable, but the least you can do is prepare for them, and minimize downtime and data loss.

Data storage is a major part of running a business, but when it comes to doing so, you have several options. The usual suspect, the hard drive, is what’s most commonly found in both consumer and business environments for a number of reasons. The solid state drive in particular presents unique opportunities for your business that you shouldn’t dismiss.

Sometimes it can be a chore to find certain programs or files on your computer when they aren’t immediately available on the desktop. You might have to dig through countless folders just to get started on an important task. Thankfully, there’s a well-known way of getting around this frustration: Windows’ integrated search application. To get started with this week’s tip, turn your attention to the Start menu.

It’s inevitable that your organization will face some hard decisions, but no choice is as painful as pulling the plug on the one thing that you’ve dumped your heart and soul into; your business. There is a plethora of problems that could cause a business to consider shutting its doors, but often there is a solution. If technology-related costs and downtime are your main problems, managed IT services can help.

For much of the past century, if you wanted to work among the clouds, you’d join the Air Force and take it from there. Nowadays, however, working among the clouds can mean that you want to work with advanced computer systems that deliver computing, security, storage, and utilities to businesses and end-users from all around the world.

It doesn’t matter what your role is within your organization--you’ll still be using the same hardware solutions to accomplish your daily tasks. Keyboards, wireless mouses, external microphones, and just about any normal USB device, all use drivers that allow for device compatibility. Unfortunately, if these drivers aren’t installed and kept up-to-date, your technology’s performance can suffer, as well as your productivity.

Arguably one of the most important parts of running a business is the physical infrastructure of your office environment. This involves ensuring that the cabling of all network assets is properly implemented. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, as no two businesses will utilize the same setup. We’ll walk you through some of the variables that you’ll need to consider during the cabling process, and what you can do to make it easier to handle.

The cloud trend has been very friendly toward businesses, allowing organizations to fulfill many of their needs and simplify processes that were challenging them only a few years ago. If you’ve never considered the cloud for your organization, it’s time to rethink your choices and ask yourself why you’re hesitant when there are so many great benefits of cloud implementation.

Mapping the known world has long been an endeavor sought by explorers, but thanks to a relatively recent tool called Google Maps, anyone with knowledge of a smartphone can see the world at a glance. Granted, Google Maps isn’t the easiest tool to use, but if you follow these tips, you’ll feel like you have the whole world in the palm of your hand… literally.

On March 29th, Starship Technologies, a self-driving robotics company, announced a partnership with Domino’s Pizza Enterprises, a franchisor for the Domino’s Pizza brand in Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Japan, and Germany (totaling over 2,000 stores). This new affiliation allows Starship Technologies to build a fleet of autonomous delivery robots, helping Domino’s with its eventual delivery person shortage, based on the company’s growth estimates for the next 5-to-10 years.

The popularity of security software has required malware distributors to be clever with their delivery methods. This is why rogue security software exists, and why you need to be absolutely certain that your network doesn’t have these fraudulent programs installed.

As a small business grows and takes on more employees and adds more departments, one aspect that becomes increasingly difficult to manage is email. Essentially, you go from using a handful of email addresses to managing dozens of accounts. If it feels like you’re losing control of your company’s email situation, then you’ll want to implement the following email solutions.

Due to recent legislative activity, the rules and regulations that the Federal Communications Commission put in place to protect the personal data of Internet users have been struck down. This change now allows ISPs, or Internet Service Providers, to sell the browsing information of their customers to advertisers without consent--a move many consider to be a threat to net neutrality. This is what you need to know.

Data storage has long been a major pain point for technology development, but a rather large (or small) breakthrough has resulted in data being stored on a single atom. The development comes from researchers at IBM, and it could have a potentially nuclear impact on the way that data storage functions.

Customer service can be tricky to gauge sometimes, as you don’t often hear about a consumer’s experience unless you provide exceptional service, or if you’re not providing good enough service. The problem here is that, unless you do something to improve the customer service you provide, you could very well lose them to your competition. What are some steps that your business can take to improve customer service?

It’s a tough lesson to learn, but almost any company is susceptible to cyber-attacks that take advantage of any security setup’s weakest link: the people involved. This lesson was most recently learned the hard way by two unnamed tech companies that fell victim to a phishing campaign that was allegedly run by Evaldas Rimasauskas, a Lithuanian man accused of stealing $100 million from them.

Imagine that, despite the extreme care you took to avoid threats from infecting your devices, they turned out to be infected anyway. However, what if the device had been infected before you had even gotten your hands on it?

It can be hard to accomplish work in a timely manner when your technology is a haphazard mess. To help with this, we’re devoting this week’s tip to three ways you can improve workflow by organizing your technology.

Two of the primary developers of tablets--Apple and Samsung--have created two of the most popular devices out there: the iPad Pro and the Galaxy Tab S3. If you’re in need of a tablet, we can help you go over your options so that you choose the one that best suits your needs.

It’s a nightmare situation for any business owner when all of their essential data suddenly disappears. Fortunately, there are measures that you can take to turn this nightmare into an inconvenience. However, you must also be certain that these measures are adequate to keep your data safe, despite the worst of circumstances.

Remember, there is a difference between a “disaster” and a “data disaster,” although the two are often connected in a cause-and-effect kind of way. A disaster is some event that puts a business in peril, oftentimes leading to a data disaster, where some large degree of data loss is experienced.

Keep in mind, a data disaster doesn't rely on a “typical” disaster in order to take place. Hardware failure, user error, and hacking attacks can all contribute to a data disaster.

Either way, nothing about any type of disaster is easily manageable. Either can have serious repercussions for your business if you don’t have a backup solution preemptively in place. However, this backup solution should meet certain criteria:

1. Backups should be taken multiple times a day, ideally as often as every 15 minutes.
2. It must be stored in multiple offsite locations. This will help keep your backup from being destroyed by the same disaster that took your original data.
3. It must be tested on a regular basis to make sure it works. Otherwise, you may as well not have one in the first place.

Keep in mind, maintaining a backup solution is only half of the business continuity battle. Preserving your data is important, but should a true disaster endanger your business, you’ll need a comprehensive Backup and Disaster Recovery plan.

To ensure your business continuity, Business Solutions & Software Group can help you create a data backup plan. Give us a call at (954) 575-3992 to get started.