Directive Blogs

Both the router and modem are crucial components of any wireless network, yet many people are unsure about the distinct roles they play in a personal or organizational Internet connection. Let’s break down the function of each device and how they work together to support your network.

Moving is already difficult, but when you factor in your business’ IT, it becomes twice as frustrating and time-consuming. You can make it easier by preparing for the job ahead of time. Today, we want to cover what you can do to prepare for a business IT move well ahead of the scheduled date.

Nostalgia is a powerful force. It can drive us to look to the past for things we once loved, such as the music we listened to over the years. However, what if the music you loved was lost forever?

This could be the case for many, as older hard drives that archive this music have been discovered to have failed. Let’s examine the situation to see what lessons any small-to-medium-sized business can learn.

Digital storage has exploded, in no uncertain terms, over the last few decades. While hard disk drives (HDDs) were the predominant storage format for most of that time, today’s faster and hardier solid-state drives (or SSDs) are becoming more affordable and popular.

However, there are still plenty of HDDs out there, all far more prone to breaking than their more advanced counterparts. So, how can you tell when a hard drive failure is pending?

With mobile devices being such a big part of doing business, It’s crucial that your business has a plan to manage them. Many times this comes with a lot of hand-wringing. One of the biggest issues is whether or not the business invests in their employee mobility or if they simply demand that they gain use of employee-owned devices. In today’s blog we’ll go through the mobile management strategies of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled (COPE).

We’re still getting more information on this, but at the time of writing this, every American can assume that their social security number has been stolen. Let’s share what we know so far.

Your computer has a brain, of sorts, in its CPU… a tiny square that literally enables everything the device does, as it processes billions of instructions at a time. Of course, to support this on such a relatively tiny piece of hardware, most CPUs are packed with microscopic transistors—these transistors being small enough to fit hundreds on a single blood cell.

As you might imagine, this means things can go wrong pretty easily… and gone wrong, things have. Many newer computers are suffering from a bug that could cause permanent damage to the CPU… and if you don’t take steps fast, it could be too late.

It was very recently revealed that a global law enforcement effort took down a massive botnet that was in action for almost a decade. In light of this, we wanted to review what a botnet is and how it works, drawing from these events for some context.

Is your business frequently grappling with the challenges of implementing new solutions, whether software or hardware? Consider harnessing the power of virtualization in the cloud to address these issues head-on. With the right tools, virtualization can open up remarkable opportunities to enhance your business' operations while bolstering its security and flexibility.

It is important to keep modern computers clean, and laptops are no exception. However, a laptop's different form factor makes cleaning it much different from cleaning a traditional desktop computer.

When taking stock of your business assets, technology is particularly critical to pay attention to. Let’s discuss why this is and what you must do to manage it properly.

The modern workplace wouldn’t exist as it does without the advent of wireless Internet or Wi-Fi. Understanding how your wireless router works can be incredibly helpful for any business owner, and it can help you get even more out of your wireless connection. Today, we want to share some information about wireless routers that can help you use them more effectively.

It’s easy to look at a power strip and a surge protector and question if there’s anything that actually makes them different. After all, they both give you extra plugs, right?

Yes, but there’s more to it than just that. Let’s review some of the important differences between the two that make one a far better choice for your business’ power delivery needs.

Love them or hate them, self-service checkout registers in brick-and-mortar stores are here to stay… especially considering that research has demonstrated that Gen Z has about twice the level of buy-in to the automated point-of-sale terminals as Gen X does, and that self-checkout is the predominant form of payment today. With this success, many have wondered how welcome biometric payment processing might be.

As it turns out, it would seem it isn’t.

We’re at a weird point in the technology world (but honestly, when is it not at least a little convoluted?). Right now, modern technology has been slowly shifting between a few different technologies and consumers and businesses are stuck in the middle trying to figure out what to do and how to future-proof their hardware investments.

Every organization, whether it’s a farm with a stable full of horses or an office with a stable filled with people, depends on its access to the Internet. Most people take for granted their ability to connect whether it be with their smartphone via Wi-Fi or their workstation, which is typically hardwired. There is a whole infrastructure behind the near ubiquitous Internet access you enjoy. Today, we will go through some of the essential hardware needed. 

Laptops are no longer exclusive to the home and work environments; indeed, more and more schools and universities are adopting laptops and other educational technology for the purposes of delivering cutting-edge instruction. Chromebooks are just one option available, if not the most cost-effective one out there. This leads to a unique set of problems, though, particularly when the software powering these devices reaches its end of life.

Let’s face it; running a business can be expensive, and taking any measures possible to mitigate those costs can have huge benefits for your bottom line. One way companies are minimizing costs is by implementing a Bring Your Own Device policy, or BYOD, to allow employees to use their own personal devices for work purposes. We’re here to help you do so without putting security at risk.

There’s no denying that running a successful business comes with its fair share of costs, and many would argue that some of these costs are anything but fair. As such, it makes sense to try and minimize your operating expenses by any sustainable means. Let’s go over one such cost-saving measure you can implement—Bring Your Own Device policies—and address how to do so without shortchanging your business’ security in the process.

We spend a lot of time working with the technology that businesses rely on, including the laptop workstations used by just about everyone in many organizations today. As such, we wanted to share some of our insights so that you know what qualities you should look for when you’re ready to acquire some additional devices for your business.