Directive Blogs

The majority of businesses that experience data loss will not recover. You may think that, if you are careful, then you will not need a backup solution, but statistics say otherwise. A 2009 study by Blackblaze.com revealed that 46% of users experience data loss every year! This figure makes sense when you consider the five most common factors of data loss.

It's a digital revolution! Everyone is enjoying their new technology...and then there's the sad fax machine, still hanging around, printing off faxes, and reminiscing about the good old days before there was this new fad called the Internet. Fax machines put a damper on the whole digital revolution vibe. It's high time to retire them and start saving money!

When you go home for the night and lock your office door, what happens in your office under the cover of darkness? During the day, you are present to monitor what goes on and control the chaos, but what kind of monitoring and controls are in place for your office at night?

At the end of the workday you may be in a hurry to leave, and as you start tossing your belongings into your bag, you come across your USB drive plugged into your PC. You're now faced with a tough decision; do you take the time to safely remove the device, or do you save 30 seconds and just unplug it?

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a communication tool designed for business. VoIP takes advantage of your Internet connection to dramatically reduce your phone bill, sometimes by as much as 80% compared to traditional long distance plans. VoIP also comes with unique features to that will assist your company in customer service and employee training.

With everything going digital, it's hard to believe that fax machines are still used today. What's funny, is that this same statement is true today just like it was ten years ago. Yet, sales of fax machines continue to increase every year. An alternative that's better in every way is a fax server solution; here are five ways it can save you money.

The mouse may look like a helpful piece of technology, but be warned; it's actually a tool of destruction. If your mouse has been your sidekick for years of heavy computer usage, then your wrist might be in danger of carpal tunnel syndrome. Sometimes, it's nice to take a break from the mouse and use your keyboard to navigate Microsoft Office.

There are many challenging aspects that come with running a business, but which aspect is the most difficult? According to a 2012 survey of small business owners by The National Federation of Independent Businesses, managing costs is the most difficult responsibility. We can help; our managed IT services turn technology into a predictable expense.

Everything feels extra difficult for small businesses. Technology makes things easier; yet technology costs money, and the lack of money tends to be at the root of every problem for businesses of all sizes. Big businesses can afford the best technology, which is one reason they do so well. We level the playing field by making big business solutions affordable.

With office work, a lack of physical activity is often coupled with extra calories from mindless snacking. Office snacks are great for your appetite, but bad for your waistline. These extra calories require extra physical activity to burn off. If you understand how much exercise a little snack will ask of you, then you might think twice about eating it.

Having an IT infrastructure that works properly is the goal for every IT department. While it’s nice to have all of your technology in working order, this is just one part of the successful business/technology equation. Having your IT network properly designed to meet the needs of your business will maximize your productivity and make your technology work for you!

As a business, you do things differently than the mild-mannered consumer. Like paying bills, it’s not like a business can sit down for half an hour every month, write a few checks, and then be done with it. Businesses have employees whose major duty is paying bills. Technology is the same way, and businesses have different technology needs than consumers.

The Internet was originally designed in 1989 as a tool for the European science agency CERN to help share information among physicist in universities around the world. On April 30th, 1993, the Internet went public. Back in 1993, Internet founders like Tim Berners-Lee did not likely realize that his invention would solve more problems than physics ever could.

Managing your business is demanding. Staying on top of your employees, your inventory, shipments, payroll, and a hundred other things can be draining to say the least. The last thing you need is to add to your leadership burden. Let us manage your technology vendors for you! Our vendor management service will relieve you from these three management stresses.

In the first two parts of our Vanity IT series, we’ve gone over how some of the top smartphones and tablets can potentially bring additional productivity to your workplace with a proper Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Mobile Device Management strategies. In our final edition of our Vanity IT series, we will go into other mobile devices that can present your company IT solutions and solve many of your remote computing problems.

The whole purpose of having a network infrastructure is to allow different users to access and share needed files and applications. With your data centralized to a server, you will need to have a system in place that allows certain people up-to-date permissions to access needed files from every computer. This is where Active Directory comes in.

In part one of Vanity IT, we covered the numerous high-powered handsets that are on the market and available for users to add a degree of productivity that had been simply unavailable before. While smartphones are the most used mobile device by far, many people are looking to the larger devices to accomplish tasks on the go. Some companies are beginning to issue devices to their employees in a concerted effort to take advantage of the flexibility that these larger mobile devices give them.

As smartphone ownership continues to rise (175 million cellphones sold last year in the US), so too does smartphone theft. Take San Francisco, CA as an example, half of all robberies reported last year were phone-related. To help curb this trend, crime fighting agencies are seeking help from phone manufacturers in developing a smartphone kill switch.

We are smack-dab in a mobile revolution. With any large-scale societal change brought on by technology, there are growing pains involved. Nowhere is this more evident than in the business world. How can you make this major technological shift benefit your business? Consider that the individuals that work in your office have indubitably been in open competition in their acquisitions of the newest mobile devices. Since they are buying them anyway, determining ways to harness the power of these devices to work for your company’s benefit is a sound strategy. Here are a list of some of the top-selling mobile devices of 2012 and what each manufacturer has on the horizon for 2013.

Many small businesses are switching their phone systems to Voice over Internet Protocol and seeing dramatic savings over traditional phone plans, especially when it comes to long distance charges. Once the switch to VoIP is made, small businesses are discovering there are more benefits to VoIP that make their business appear bigger and more professional!