Computer Tip of the Day: Choosing a Brand for Your Small Business

computer tip of the day choosing a brand for your small business

Computer Tip of the Day

In order to create an effective digital business network for a small company, you must decide on a brand for the office. The computer tip of the day is how to effectively choose a brand that will create an effective network for you.

Choosing an OS

There is now very little difference between the two major operating systems, Windows and the Apple Mac OS. Choose whichever platform supports the software that your critical employees use, and make sure that you buy computers for the same operating system for all departments.

If you are in the tech industry, you may benefit from the Linux system, but only if you have in-house staff with in-depth computer knowledge.

Investing in Mobility

If you want your employees to move with your data, you will need to invest in a mobile platform that connects to your office network. Ensure that the OS on your mobile devices matches the brand for your stationary computers.

CPU vs GPU Power

You will spend much more money upgrading your CPU power than you will GPU power; however, GPU upgrades can give you up to 1000 times the efficiency of a CPU power up.

No matter which OS you choose, make sure that you have computers that are modern enough to upgrade through their GPU. You will pay more upfront, but you will save tens of thousands of dollars later.

Please feel free to contact us for your IT support. Focus your efforts where they need to be while we focus on protecting your hard work.

Also Check Out Our Cabling Services!

The Best Office 365 Features For Businesses

the best office 365 features for businesses
office 365 features

With their release of Office 365, Microsoft aims to help businesses that currently rely on Microsoft’s Office applications. Office 365 is a new suite of programs that will help businesses become more productive, along with keeping their information secure. If you are a business owner/manager, here are just a few of the office 365 features that may interest you.

Allow For Greater Productivity

When it comes to productivity – something every business manager is after – it all comes down to one thing: how easy is it to do your work? If something makes your job easier, it will increase productivity. That is essentially the goal of Office 365. Microsoft designed this suite of programs with simplicity in mind, so that your employees can spend more time worrying about their own tasks, rather than the technology performing them.

In The Cloud

One of the ways that Microsoft made these programs easier to use is by connecting everything through their cloud storage system. This means that employees can share files more quickly, make changes to those files, and access them from anywhere. As long as you have a computer, tablet or smart phone and an internet connection, you can access everything you need.

Administrator Control

Lastly, Microsoft has made it so administrators have a high level of control over the product, something that will make your IT department happy. By giving you more control over the system, you can monitor what is going on within the program, and correct any problems on the spot, should they arise. This means less time waiting for your IT guy to get off the phone with Microsoft’s support team, and more time being spent getting work done.

As you can see, there are some great features that can benefit your business, and there are many more. If you would like to learn more about how this suite of programs can help your business to become more productive, please feel free to contact us at any time.

Are Your Backup and Recovery Methods Effective?

are your backup and recovery methods effective
backup and recovery

Businesses that suffer a loss of data often make use of backup and recovery measures. Unfortunately, their backup methods may fail completely or otherwise not work well for their data needs.

A survey recently reported in Business Cloud News showed that 86% of businesses that had lost important data used backup solutions, and 48% performed daily backups. However, they still couldn’t fully rely on their backup methods. Maybe they’d forgotten to back up all their devices, or their backup measures failed at critical points. Their costly losses underscore the need for reliable data backup solutions.

Do Your Data Backup Methods Work?

You need to know if the measures you’re using are effective. This involves testing them regularly to check if they would actually help you should you suffer an IT disaster.

There are several issues you should look into, including the following:

  • How frequently do you back up your data? For critical data, continuous backups are advisable.
  • How long does it take you to back up your data? If it’s a protracted process, you leave your business more vulnerable to data loss.
  • When you back up your data, are you including all of your devices?
  • Do you have high-quality backups? Check the rate of failure for your backup method. You should have ways of finding out when a backup didn’t complete successfully. You don’t want to discover during an IT emergency that a backup you were counting on doesn’t exist.
  • How easily can you perform data restoration? Even if you have the data backed up, your business may experience damaging amounts of downtime if you can’t restore the data quickly.

Please contact us to discuss the best backup and recovery measures for your company. We’ll help you choose and set up reliable backup procedures. Furthermore, we’ll assist you with running tests to check that your backups are truly effective, making you better prepared to respond successfully to IT disasters.

Computer Tip Of The Day (MS Excel)

Computer Tip Of The Day (MS Excel) Microsoft Excel is a cornerstone of the business office. From salaries to sales and everything in between, its’ uses almost defy belief. But there are so many of us that don’t, won’t or can’t leverage it to its’ fullest potential because we don’t know all the little ins and outs that the experts know. No more!

Your computer tip of the day is for Microsoft Excel, and it’s really simple. Learn the keyboard shortcuts you need to make things go faster. Here are a few examples:

  • Formulas in cells feature relative computational links. When they fill down or right or are copied from one location to another, the formulas contained therein update automatically based on the new cells’ positions. So, if I have a cell in C1 that adds A1 to B1 and I copy to C2, it will now add A2 and B2, instead.
  • Use Ctrl-C to copy a cell’s or range’s contents
  • Use Ctrl-V to paste the clipboard contents. If you need to copy one cell or range to multiple, contiguous locations, you can highlight the starting cells first and then use Ctrl-V to paste into all of those locations.
  • Ctrl-Z will undo your mistakes, and can go backwards up to 25 entries or more, depending on your version of Office.
  • Ctrl-Y will redo your undone mistakes, but only up to the point that you make a new change.
  • Ctrl-X cuts the contents of a cell.
  • Ctrl-R copies the contents of a cell to a highlighted range to the right
  • Ctrl-D copies the contents of a cell to a highlighted range down.

Contact us and sign up today for more creative insights into making Microsoft Office work better, easier and faster for you.

IT Support for Medical Practices: Are You Prepared for Data Breaches?

it support for medical practices are you prepared for data breaches

it support for medical practices When you’re faced with the ever-increasing threat of cyber attacks, the only way to protect your medical practice is to develop a comprehensive data security program.

Along with the sensitive data collected by most businesses, such as names, addresses and bank account information, medical practices are also responsible for safeguarding a wide variety of private patient data, ranging from current medications to history of illnesses.

Medical practices must at the very least meet HIPAA guidelines for protecting patient information and complying with certain standards for electronic data security.

As discussed in a recent article from Diagnostic Imaging, part of your cyber security program should also include a response plan to a data breach. If your system experiences an unauthorized intrusion, how would you react? Do you have strategies in place for containing the damage from the intrusion? Do you have reliable ways of detecting a breach, along with employees who have the expertise to respond effectively? Who would you notify?

Working with IT Professionals

IT professionals with experience assisting medical providers and healthcare companies can help your medical practice develop a powerful cyber security program.

This program would include technological safeguards against data breaches and reliable IT support for system monitoring and maintenance; the IT support personnel you work with would also respond quickly and effectively should a breach occur. Furthermore, your cyber security program would involve training your employees in safe practices to better protect your patients’ data.

Medical providers remain an attractive target for cyber criminals. When working with IT experts, you reduce the chances of experiencing an embarrassing, damaging data breach and violating HIPAA standards.

If you’re looking for powerful and trustworthy IT support for medical practices, don’t hesitate to contact us.