Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

Of all the small inconveniences that plague modern life, a dying smartphone battery is among the worst of them—which explains how the tendency so many have to constantly keep their phone plugged in came about. However, it’s been said that this is actively bad for the device. Is this still the case? For this week’s tip, we’re diving into the factors that drain your device’s battery, and what the best way to handle this power reserve is.

For years, people have been increasingly worried about the potential onslaught of automation on human jobs. As computer systems and artificial intelligence have improved, there are some legitimate concerns for unskilled workers or those that work in industries where automation is featured. Today, we’ll dive into what concerns workers should have on account of automation and why no one should be panicking quite yet. 

Business technology can be a complicated topic, and with it appearing in more and more aspects of daily operations, it is important for organizations of all sizes to be sure that they have a complete understanding and awareness of how they put their IT to use. These considerations make it imperative that certain best practices are made part of your standard operating procedures… and for this to be accomplished, company leadership will need to lead by example.

Remote work is a lot harder than it sounds, which took many workers by surprise when lockdowns suddenly made working from home the safest way for many companies to operate. As weeks and months have passed, there has been a growing tendency for these newly-remote workers to (putting it mildly) explore their other employment options… something that doesn’t bode well for your operations.

Everyday life relies on software to keep going, a phenomenon that is perhaps most visible in the business environment. Unfortunately, it is this software that can prove to be the point of egress that attackers need to your network. Let’s consider a commonly overlooked aspect of IT maintenance—patch management—and why it is so crucial to a business’ operational success.

It’s not a secret that we spend too much time on our phones, sitting in front of the computer or television, or just looking at screens in general. You don’t have to go out of your way to find commentary on the subject. What you might find interesting is that there have been an increasing number of studies that have consistently shown that the amount of notifications a person receives is directly related to their productivity; or, lack thereof. 

Here’s the thing: even if your password policy is airtight and perfectly followed, relying on passwords alone isn’t enough anymore to secure your business. Some of today’s threats are just too capable of cracking them. In order to really preserve your business’ security, most security professionals (like us) recommend implementing two-factor authentication—however, it pays off to consider your options, and how much (if any) added security each has to offer.

Data is one of—if not the—most essential resources a business has, which means it is essential that you take the steps to protect it in every way possible from every potential threat. This includes those that could originate from within your own organization. Let’s consider the case of Xiaorong You, who was recently convicted of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft by a federal jury.

One of the most terrifying situations your business can encounter is when it’s clear that you’ve been hacked. It can cause extreme anxiety regardless of what size of a business you run. The most important thing is to know how to react to mitigate the damage to your business’ network and reputation. Let’s go through a few steps you need to take if you’ve been hacked.

While it may not seem so at first glance, the concept of “productivity” has evolved significantly in the last few centuries—the amount of time it has been seen as a priority. Beginning once technology enabled the focus of life to be less day-to-day survival and more centered around industry and scale, the first whispers of our modern view of productivity started in the late 1700s. Let’s briefly examine how our view of productivity developed, and how many are looking at it today.

When so many shifted over to remote operations during the pandemic, it threw a sizable number of them for a loop. It has taken about a year for the shift to settle in, in fact, and so people everywhere are finally starting to feel the impacts of prolonged remote work. One considerable impact: the fatigue that the digital communications required have brought about, and how overwhelmed your team may feel as a result.

Running a business of any size comes with more than its fair share of risks, particularly if that business is on the smaller side. One major risk factor is the prospect of cybercrime and the impact it can have on a business. Let’s look at how this particular risk can influence the challenges that businesses must now contend with.

Email is a hugely useful business tool, which is what makes solutions like Microsoft Outlook so popular in today’s organizations. Having said that, it can become far too simple for the inbox to be overstuffed with outdated and unnecessary messages that ultimately serve little more than to hide the ones you need to review.

Did you know that there’s a capability built into Outlook that can help you keep track of your important messages? Let’s go over how you can use it.

Ransomware attacks are notorious for their expense to the victim—largely because of the various costs that come along with successful ransomware infections, including many that might not be expected at first. Let’s review some of these costs, if only to reinforce the importance of avoiding ransomware as a rule.

For a considerably long time—over 40 years—Apple has staked the claim that their devices are pretty much hack-proof, that most hackers wouldn’t even try breaking into their security measures. Law enforcement was so repeatedly rebuffed by the company as they sought workarounds to get into their devices, that these law enforcement agencies figured it out for themselves.

In doing so, they uncovered a few things that even the most ardent Apple fans may be surprised to hear.

We’ve all received those emails that have some level of sensitive data in them, and we’ve all sent our fair share of them as well. However, one almost has to wonder—how secure is this data as it sits around in someone’s inbox?

With a business’ inventory playing such an important role in so many business operations, the capability to manage it properly can be seen as indispensable. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to help make your inventory management much simpler than it once was. Let’s take a few moments to consider three such tools, and how they are being used now.

With the considerable costs that a business’ hardware investments can bring, it only makes sense to identify any means to optimize these costs available. One very effective means of doing so is to adopt a virtualized environment, either hosted onsite or in the cloud. Let’s take a few moments to consider how virtualization can benefit your organization.

With computers being so integral to modern life, it can be too easy to hear about certain drawbacks—like the purported impacts of blue light—and discount them as little more than a way for companies to sell things that nobody really needs. While we aren’t going to speak to all these presumed drawbacks, we did want to spend some time discussing blue light and how it could impact your health (and how to help keep it from doing so).

For the small, but growing business, there are a lot of risks that could potentially harm their ability to stay in business. One of those risks comes in the form of cybercrime. Over the past several years, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have improved the ways in which they combat cybercrime. Let’s take a look at some of the problems SMBs have to deal with.