Directive Blogs

Black Friday: it’s the name given to the unofficial first day of the holiday shopping season, and is associated with the generally unparalleled deals on consumer products. Many consumers use this day’s incredible deals to justify spending their day buying (and often fighting over) a limited amount of goods. However, have you ever considered that Black Friday can also be a good day to both advance your B2B operations and take advantage of some deals yourself?

You’ve used a mouse for years, but do you know of all the neat little tricks that it’s capable of? We’ll show you just how much you can get done with your mouse.

BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device, policies have proven to be a highly effective way for companies to save money. However, these policies need to address some of the shortcomings, potential costs and issues that comes with employees bringing and using their own devices could present to your business--not to mention security concerns.

Whether you are suspicious or not, today seems like a good day to talk out what can happen if some bad luck interferes with your business. Disasters can come in all shapes and sizes, from a freak storm destroying your place of business and every IT component you had inside, to an employee whose path was crossed by a black cat accidentally spilling their coffee on their keyboard as they access some key data.

When selecting which solutions, your business will need as a part of its information technology infrastructure, it helps to look to the future and your plans to advance and expand. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt to make sure that you and your needs are covered, just in case something were to go wrong. This is why it is important to be sure you know the answers to the following questions, especially when someone else is managing your IT solutions.

There are some tasks that are essential to the health of your business’ network. For example, you need to make sure that you are engaging in regular network management activities. Do you know what this task entails?

Putting together your workforce is something that requires painstaking attention to detail. You found workers who are willing to work as hard as possible to further your organization’s goals. Yet, you have to remember that even the most perfect employees are still human, and that they can make mistakes and can put the organization’s data at risk. User error is a common problem, and it is one of the most important things to keep in mind while you set up your information systems.

With the mountainous success of Game of Thrones, the BBC-produced show has always been understandably concerned with their security. However, with the show officially overtaking the original source material, A Song of Ice and Fire, there is an increased presence of curious fans and members of the press with an eye out for a sneak peek at the action. This has led to more; somewhat more modern measures being adopted to keep the production’s secrets safe.

Do you let your employees bring their own devices in for use on your company network or Wi-Fi connection? If so, we’re sure that they love the freedom that you provide for them, but we must warn you of the dangers that this can bring to an otherwise careful business. We’ll discuss some of the benefits, as well as the pitfalls, of allowing your employees to use personal devices in the workplace.

While maintaining any system can be a pain, your business can’t afford not to maintain your network. An MSP can help you to do so, delivering the benefits of regular network maintenance.

Do you understand what the event logs of your network are, and how they keep your organization secure? If not, you could be ignoring one of the most basic components of network security. Event logs are important for spotting significant issues on a workstation or laptop.

There are many ways to share a file between two computers. Being familiar with multiple options will certainly come in handy, especially when your preferred method of file sharing isn’t an option (like when you can’t find your flash drive, or maybe you lose Internet connection). For this week’s tip, here are four options to help your business more effectively share files.

Before we dive into this week’s tip, it has to be said: if you have a choice, you should probably avoid using a public computer. As a rule, these machines feature minimal security precautions, along with maximum risk to any data accessed by the PC. Although, if a situation ever arises in which you have no choice but to use a public computer, be sure to follow these security best practices.

You only care about how long your device’s battery lasts when it’s in the red, and at that point, it’s almost too late to find somewhere to charge. In situations like this, your first thought is, “Where is the nearest outlet?” Subsequently, your next thought might be, “How can I charge the battery faster?”

How much of managing your IT resources are your employees responsible for? SMBs will often have their employees service their own workstations to some degree, primarily because they don’t have the resources to devote entirely to IT management and maintenance. This lack of IT talent can largely be made up for by training your employees on basic computer tasks.

Whether you are looking to prevent theft, curb employee time-wasting, or get a handle on workplace efficiency, security cameras are a solution that prevents and protects you from a wide variety of issues.

On average, how many people do you think are affected by identity theft? According to the United States Bureau of Justice, about five percent of its population; about 11.7 million people, are victims of identity theft. Their methods might vary, but the one thing that all victims have in common is that they hold information that presents value to hackers. Among these victims could be a few that hit close to home: your employees.

Cybersecurity is one of the most important aspects of running a business. Therefore, here are some of the best ways that your employees can contribute to your company’s technology security practices.

Meetings: they’re known in the business world as a necessary evil. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. With a few adjustments, you can create the ideal conditions for effective and efficient meetings.

Owning any piece of technology in today’s day and age is like a playing with fire. While it’s a great tool that has allowed civilization to grow and make great strides toward a better future, there’s also significant risk involved with owning such an expensive piece of technology. If it breaks down on you, you’ll be left with both a dent in your pocket and possibly even a chunk of your data missing. Here are three ways that even the average PC user can improve the performance of their technology and extend its life cycle considerably.