Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

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.

It’s not unheard of for organizations to experience immense technological trouble that brings future potential problems into question. Surprises like these can spell trouble for businesses that are unprepared, especially considering the major damage it could cause to your budget. This forces you to ask yourself if you know what your current plan for IT covers, and what you want your provider to do to eliminate unexpected billing surprises.

As useful as the Internet is with helping a workforce complete their daily tasks, it is just as capable of having negative effects for your business. There is plenty of content online that has no place in the workplace, including plenty that serves as unwanted distractions. Fortunately, you can prevent your employees from lollygagging on the job with a fairly simple solution: web content filtering.

It’s fascinating to look back to what people of the past predicted our technology would look like today, and even more so when we see their truly fantastical ideas become a reality. This also allows us to anticipate what will someday be the norm in business technology. Here’s four technologies that we’re looking forward to seeing more of.

How many ways can you think of to share a file between two workstations? The more ways you know how to share a file, the less chance there is that you’ll be stuck without access to critical files due to an Internet outage. This week’s tip will inform you of four different ways to help your business share files.

Cars aren’t as simple as they used to be, particularly in regard to the technology that’s inside them. Nowadays, you’d be hard-pressed to find a new vehicle that isn’t vulnerable in some way to threats like malware or cyber attacks. The researchers at Kaspersky have proven that many apps that are connected to smart cars aren’t as secure as drivers expect them to be.

A recent survey shows that 43 percent of IT decision makers plan on investing more in the cloud in 2017. When you compare this projection with the steady cloud adoption rate we’ve seen over the past decade, it becomes obvious that the cloud is the next evolution of business computing. As exciting as this is, it’s important to adopt the cloud with a degree of caution.

Let’s say that you’re in the comfort of your own home working on a major project that needs to be completed before you turn in for the night. However, the moment you take out a tablet or laptop, your toddler runs up to you, curious about what you’re trying to do. This makes it rather difficult to get anything done, especially since most toddlers suffer from what’s known as the “mine” syndrome.

Despite cash having been king for centuries, many businesses today have elected to implement cashless payment options as their customers increasingly rely on the mobile payment technologies that their personal devices allow. These businesses are the ones making the smart choice, as there are many factors that encourage the adoption of alternative payment technologies.

Business owners have a lot to worry about. However, keeping workstations, server units, mobile devices, and various software solutions in good working order doesn’t have to be a concern--that is, if you outsource these responsibilities to the right IT professionals.

The Internet of Things is quickly becoming a major part of today’s consumer-based industry. One of the best examples of this is the use of smart car technology. A great example of this comes from a company called Zubie, which sells a handy device meant to provide car owners with tracking analytics, access to diagnostic systems, and even the capability to connect to Wi-Fi.

Every consumer-grade PC comes with a basic firewall. Enterprise environments, however, require that the base infrastructure has a stronger security solution that provides greater controls, above and beyond the basic firewall. One solution that provides enhanced firewall capabilities is the Unified Threat Management system.