Microsoft updates are the most annoying updates on the market. However, there comes a time when you have to bite the bullet and upgrade in order to keep abreast of industry standards.
This computer tip of the day lets you know how to upgrade to Windows 10.
Upgrade While it is Free.
July 29, 2016 is the final day that Microsoft will offer the Windows 10 upgrade for free to those offices running Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1 Update. Make sure that you are upgrading to Pro or Enterprise and that you include the Windows Update for Business.
Turn Off the Keylogger.
You may have heard that Windows 10 comes defaulted to a keylogger that transmits all of your activity back to Microsoft. Here is the link to turn off that creepy option for good.
Decide Whether You Need Azure Active Directory.
Azure Active Directory is a relatively decent option for businesses that have already transitioned into the cloud. Its implementation gives you access to thousands of SaaS applications in the cloud such as Concur, DropBox, Office365 and Salesforce.com.
However, you may not need Azure Active Directory if you are not transmitting data through the cloud. Implementation when you are not using the cloud in this capacity can complicate the user interface needlessly, slowing down your office productivity and basically putting a bunch of junk in the way of basic operations.
Please contact us for IT support in Fort Lauderdale and Miami. We pride ourselves on taking care of your ideas and supporting your business with a sturdy infrastructure.
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.
Microsoft Excel is one of the most powerful computing tools available to a business person, regardless of the context in which they work, be it a home office, small business or trans-national corporation. Among the many tools available in Excel, absolute and relative cell references are one of the more often over-looked and misunderstood.
Your computer tip of the day is what they are and how to use them both:
A relative cell reference is generated automatically by excel whenever you attempt to insert a cell reference in a formula. They are distinctive by the combination of letters and numbers that appear in the formula and the highlight produced on the cell being referenced. Relative references have great power: as you copy and paste the formula left, right, up or down in your workbook, the formula updates to match its’ new position in the document and recalculate based on how far it moved in both directions. This in incredibly powerful for summing columns, or concatenating text strings in rows, for example.
Absolute cell references are different. You have to create them manually, by inserting a dollar sign in front of each portion of a relative cell reference. Yes, you can have partially absolute and partially relative cell references in the same place. An absolute cell reference will always find the exact cell specified, no matter where or how you copy the formula within the spreadsheet. This is an incredibly powerful tool if you need to apply things like a fixed percentage across a range of values, but that percentage needs to be the same for every value. You could simply specify that percentage at the top of the column, and then fill down the absolute reference formula in the same column.
Here are some examples:
Relative cell reference: “B32”, “D17”, “G4”
Absolute cell reference: “$B32”, “D$17”, “$G$4
Absolute and relative cell references are another powerful tool you can use to make Excel work easier for you. Contact us to learn more.
One IT security strategy used by various businesses and other organizations is routine password replacement. At regular intervals, such as every three or four months, employees change the passwords to their accounts.
The purpose of this strategy is to keep cyber criminals and other unauthorized individuals from successfully using a password.
People assume that if the password changes every few months, its older incarnations will lose their relevance, giving legitimate account holders additional protection.
However, a recent article published in Business Insider highlights a major flaw in this approach. To comply with the requirement of regularly changing their passwords, employees and other authorized account holders often rely on convenient tricks that wind up weakening their passwords’ strength.
For example, they may create their new password by changing only one character in the old one, or by reusing passwords that they’d already relied on months earlier. That means that someone who knows an old password can guess at a new one and obtain unauthorized access to an account.
Furthermore, as pointed out in the article, the tricks you try to use to protect your password don’t mean much if hackers exploit other vulnerabilities to get into your system.
Rethinking Password Strategies
The computer tip of the day is to rethink your approach to password security. Always evaluate the efficacy of your company’s cyber security tools and strategies, along with making sure they belong to a larger, comprehensive IT security plan.
When it comes to good password policies, the following are a few tips to consider:
Make sure your passwords have sufficient complexity; for example, they should be long and contain a variety of characters.
If you rely on password recovery questions, don’t answer them with information that’s available for anyone to find out.
Two-factor authentication provides an additional layer of protection; even if hackers steal your password, they would also need to have your phone to type in the verification code and access your account.
You can rely on a reputable password manager that generates strong, complex passwords for different accounts and protects them with encryption.
Contact us to further discuss the best cyber security practices for your company. It’s important to not simply rely on received wisdom or imitate what other companies and organizations are doing.
Before you clock out for the day, you have one final decision to make: should you turn off your computer? Will it really save that much money? This is the topic of our computer tip of the day.
Like this article notes, sleep mode is a power-saving state that is similar to pausing a DVD movie. All actions on the computer are stopped and any open documents and applications are put in memory. You can quickly resume normal, full-power operation within a few seconds. Sleep mode is basically the same thing as “Standby” mode.
Screen Savers
As you get up from your desk or work station, you might be tempted to walk away and let your screen saver do what it was meant to do, which is to save your screen from… something you might or might not even know. Well, here’s the truth:
CRT monitors need screen savers to keep from having an image “burned” onto the screen.
CRT monitors look like older TV sets and function in a similar manner.
Practically nobody uses CRT monitors anymore.
Screen savers do practically nothing for the modern monitor. (It takes an insanely long time for an image to burn onto an LCD monitor!)
Aside from looking pretty or entertaining us as we watch hypnotic patterns (or flying toasters, if you have a really old screen saver), all a screen saver does these days is chew up energy. A screen saver can burn up 140 to 200 watts of power as it performs the calculations to do its obsolete job.
Sleep Mode (Stand-by)
By comparison, a computer that is put into “sleep” mode uses 2 to 8 watts of power. Sleep mode still uses power, yes, but the wake up time is a matter of a few seconds. Your work is still where you left it and you can continue as though nothing snooze-worthy has happened.
Hibernate
Hibernation uses no power. The reboot time is anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes, and there is a chance for data corruption, but if you have a lot of computers in your office, the energy savings could be worth it.
Unplugged
The EPA recommends that unnecessary appliances be unplugged when not in use. This is because a small amount of power trickles in constantly to our favorite gadgets and their chargers. This may not be practical at your office, but it is the guaranteed way to ensure that your computers are not consuming any power while they’re not being used for extended periods.
Go To Sleep
For many, the sleep mode provides the right balance between energy savings and work efficiency. It significantly reduces power consumption while allowing you to pick right up where you left off with a minimal wait time. Additionally, the great thing about sleep mode is that you don’t have to do anything. Just set it and forget it. What could be more convenient?
For help with setting up your systems for the best performance and efficiency, contact us. Good night, sleep tight, and don’t forget to turn out the lights!
