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Your Remote Workers Aren’t Using Computers That Look Like This, Are They?

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

When did you last check everything was OK with the devices your team uses when they work remotely?

That might sound like a strange question. But a recent survey discovered that 67% of remote workers are using faulty devices to work from home. And the reason?

They’ve likely damaged the device themselves and are too scared to tell you!

Laptops, keyboards, and monitors are most likely to be damaged (in that order). And it’s usually because of food or drink spills… though some people blame their partners, children, and even their pets!

We’ve all watched in horror as a cat rubs itself against a full glass of water next to a laptop…

[Read more…] about Your Remote Workers Aren’t Using Computers That Look Like This, Are They?

Top 5 Cybersecurity Mistakes That Leave Your Data At Risk

The global damage of cybercrime has risen to an average of $11 million USD per minute, which is a cost of $190,000 each second.

Sixty percent of small and mid-sized companies that have a data breach end up closing their doors within six months because they can’t afford the costs.

The costs of falling victim to a cyberattack can include loss of business, downtime/productivity losses, reparation costs for customers that have had data stolen, and more.

Many of the most damaging breaches are due to common cybersecurity mistakes that companies and their employees make.

Here are several of the most common missteps when it comes to basic IT security best practices.

Not implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Credential theft has become the top cause of data breaches around the world, according to IBM Security.

MFA reduces fraudulent sign-in attempts by a staggering 99.9%.

Ignoring the use of shadow IT

Shadow IT is the use of cloud applications by employees for business data that haven’t been approved and may not even be known about by a company.

Shadow IT use leaves companies at risk for several reasons:

  • Data may be used in a non-secure application
  • Data isn’t included in company backup strategies
  • If the employee leaves, the data could be lost
  • The app being used might not meet company compliance requirements

It’s important to have cloud use policies in place that spell out for employees the applications that can and cannot be used for work.

Thinking you’re fine with only an antivirus

No matter how small your business is, a simple antivirus application is not enough to keep you protected. In fact, many of today’s threats don’t use a malicious file at all.

Phishing emails will contain commands sent to legitimate PC systems that aren’t flagged as a virus or malware.

Phishing also overwhelmingly uses links these days rather than file attachments to send users to malicious sites. Those links won’t get caught by simple antivirus solutions.

You need to have a multi-layered strategy in place that includes things like:

  • Next-gen anti-malware (uses AI and machine learning)
  • Next-gen firewall
  • Email filtering
  • DNS filtering
  • Automated application and cloud security policies
  • Cloud access monitoring

Not having device management in place

A majority of companies around the world have had employees working remotely from home since the pandemic. However, device management for those remote employee devices as well as smartphones used for business hasn’t always been put in place.

A device management application in place, like Intune in Microsoft 365 can help manage this.

Not providing adequate training to employees

An astonishing 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error.

Employee IT security awareness training should be done throughout the year, not just annually or during an onboarding process.

Some ways to infuse cybersecurity training into your company culture include:

  • Short training videos
  • IT security posters
  • Webinars
  • Team training sessions
  • Cybersecurity tips in company newsletters

Is Unified Communications Right For Your Business?

Unified Communications (UC) is a ready-to-use system that allows for seamless communication in numerous ways such as phone, video, screen sharing, chat and file management.

The system operates as a cloud service, making it easily accessible to all team members with access to the Internet. But why should anyone consider switching to unified communications?

There are several reasons, but this is the most crucial: Business leaders who adopt UC would be able to impact their business every day and make it seamless for employees to interact with each other.

That said, we’ll list 5 of the key features of this concept to help you better understand how it can help you scale your business.

Mobility

When connected to unified communications, all employees can stay connected at all times and from all locations. It doesn’t matter whether they’re working from home, vacationing on a remote island, or sitting in the office. They’ll still be able to chat, receive calls, and more.

Unified messaging

This allows employees to handle different message types using a single tool. They can easily switch communication modes, depending on their needs.

Conferencing

Whenever you need conferencing tools, you’ll have them in the palm of your hand.

You can allow a group of teammates or customers from outside your organization to connect and speak via video or audio from different locations.

Fax support

Faxes received through unified communications appear as email attachments. This way, users can also receive faxes on their desktops and smartphones.

Presence

This feature lets other users know each other’s status. That means you’ll be able to see when someone is online (Active), busy (Do Not Disturb), or away (Out of the Office).

Malware Is Becoming Harder To Spot

According to new research, four in five malware attacks delivered by encrypted connections evade detection. And since two-thirds of malware is now arriving this way, it has the potential to be a big problem for your business.

This type of threat has already hit record levels and continues to grow. So, if you don’t yet have a response and recovery plan in place, now’s the time to create one.

It sits alongside your cyber security software protection and regular staff training. The plan details what you do in the event of a cyber-attack.

Having the right plan in place means all your people will know how to sound the alarm if something is wrong. It ensures downtime and damage are kept to an absolute minimum.

The faster you respond to an attack, the less data you should lose, the less it should cost you to put things right, and the faster you get back to work. Of course, you should also follow the usual security guidelines of making sure that updates and patches are installed immediately, and regularly checking your backup is working and verified.

Businesses that don’t place a high importance on their own cyber security planning are the ones hit hardest by such an attack.

Can we help you create your response and recovery plan? Call us.

What Are The Best Ways To Give An Older PC New Life?

Purchasing a new computer is a big investment. Many small businesses and home PC owners end up struggling with older systems because they want to get as many years out of them as possible.

Have you found yourself banging on your keyboard in frustration? Have you tried every tip and trick you found online, only to still struggle with a slow PC?

There are some promising upgrades you can do that will cost much less than the price of a new computer, while making your PC feel like new again. Here are some of the options you can try to improve the performance of an older computer.

Upgrade to a solid state hard drive (SSD)

Prices for solid-state drives have come down quite a bit in the past few years, making them an affordable upgrade that can breathe life back into an older PC that might be slowing down.

Unlike hard disk drives (HDDs), SSDs do not have any moving parts and use a flash memory that allows for a quicker response time. You can improve your time to boot and your experience when searching files, opening applications, and other activities.

Some of the advantages of upgrading your computer’s hard drive to SSD include:

  • SSD read/write speeds up to 2500 MB/second compared to HDD at up to 200 MB/second
  • SSD access time of 0.1ms as compared to HDD at 5.5-8.0ms
  • SSDs use between 2-5 watts of energy compared to HDD at 6-15 watts

Increase the memory

One upgrade that is very low-cost and can mean a significant increase in performance is a memory upgrade. If your PC was one of the cheaper ones that only had 4GB of RAM when you bought it, you likely have trouble opening too many tabs in your browser or using any graphics-heavy program.

Upgrading your RAM, if your PC has available memory slots, to 8GB or 12GB can make it seem like you have an entirely new computer due to the big increase in speed.

Upgrade the graphics card

If you play computer games or work in any type of video, imaging, or 3D software, an outdated graphics card can ruin your experience.

Instead of replacing your entire computer, just upgrading the graphics card to a more robust model can improve your PC’s performance and give you several more useful years from it.

Replace your PCs cooling system

Heat is an enemy of your computer’s internal parts. If your cooling system is getting worn out and not working the way it should be, then excess heat can be building up inside your device.

When this happens things can get strange, with programs crashing or your system rebooting on its own.

If you suspect excess heat may be an issue, have your computer’s fan and cooling system checked out to see if it needs replacing.

Connect an external monitor to a laptop

If you’re working on a laptop and having a hard time multi-tasking due to limited screen real estate, consider getting an external monitor rather than replacing your entire PC.

Monitors are just a fraction of the cost of computers and having a screen twice the size of the one on your laptop can make all the difference in the world and improve productivity due to the additional screen space.

Replace your keyboard

Older keyboards can stick, lose keys, and have the writing rubbed off the keys, making it more difficult to tell a “prt screen” from a “delete” button. If the performance of your PC is hampered by a frustrating keyboard, an upgrade can be a very inexpensive way to improve your equipment.

Get an external hard drive

Computers can slow down and be more difficult to use when the hard drive fills up with data. Over the years, files build up, and many users never take the time to go through and delete those that are unnecessary.

Buying an external hard drive can allow you to offload files that may be slowing you down while still keeping them easily accessible.

Another benefit of an external hard drive is that it’s portable and can easily be carried between home and work and used in both places.

Get a professional PC tune-up

Those free PC cleaner tools you find online aren’t going to give you the type of tune-up that a professional IT provider can give.

We will go through things like the Windows Registry, duplicate system files, internal errors, and more to clean up your system and remove all the “junk” that has built up over the years.

We can also do a maintenance check for things like failing parts, and provide expert guidance on your most impactful upgrade options.

Don’t struggle with an older PC! We can help you with cost-effective upgrade options that will fit your system and budget perfectly.

What Could Digital Transformation Do For Your Business?

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

As an ambitious business owner, you’re always looking for new ways to help your business develop, improve, and grow, no matter how successful it already is. You also want to improve the experience for your customers.

And of course, you’ll be aware that your IT infrastructure plays a big part in this growth and the overall experience.

That works both ways. Sometimes, it’s that same infrastructure that can limit how your business evolves. Running older systems, or perhaps systems that don’t fully meet your needs, can hold back growth.

This is where digital IT transformation comes in. Maybe you’ve never heard that term before. Or perhaps the concept is new to you. Here’s a one line explanation:

Digital IT transformation is about using modern technology to create or modify business processes, culture, and customer experiences.

It involves a complete reassessment and overhaul of your technology, with the goal of improving the efficiency and delivery of your products or services.

We can make this easier with a few case studies of how big businesses you’ve definitely heard of used digital IT transformation. Just because these are big names doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant to you – this is for all businesses, of all sizes. [Read more…] about What Could Digital Transformation Do For Your Business?

What Are The Most Helpful Features Of Windows 11?

One of the reasons that Windows 11 has been welcomed with open arms for both home and business computer upgrades is that it isn’t dramatically different from Windows 10. This upgrade is mainly focused on helping users do tasks faster and find things more easily.

If you’ve been on the fence about whether or not to upgrade to Windows 11, we’ll go through several of the most helpful features below that might make you want to upgrade sooner rather than later.

And if you have already upgraded your machine to Windows 11 or purchased a new PC with the OS installed, you’ll want to look over these features to make sure you haven’t been missing out on some productivity enhancers.

Snap layouts

One challenge that tends to be universal across multiple users is the struggle of trying to work in more than one window at a time on your PC screen. You can end up spending time resizing the windows just right, then need to open a window to full size to reach a scroll bar and end up back at square one.

Many users will app-switch, meaning they switch between one app window that is fully open and another that isn’t. This is also time-consuming.

In a study of user productivity, it was found that 56% of app users said that switching between apps makes it difficult to get essential work done and costs them at least 30 minutes per day.

Enter… snap layouts in Windows 11.

This feature is designed to solve this problem by providing the user with several options for window arrangements that snap windows into place. The view is designed so you can reach all scroll bars and menu items in a particular app window.

This is one of the most time-saving features of the new operating system and it’s very intuitive and easy to use.

Texting & video calls from Teams on the desktop

If you’re one of those people that hates typing out texts on a tiny smartphone screen only to have it altered by a rogue auto-correction, then the new Teams integration in Windows 11 is going to be a welcome change.

Teams is now natively integrated on the taskbar, so there is no application you need to install. Setup only takes a few minutes and involves you putting in your name and a mobile phone number.

Using the Microsoft Teams icon from the desktop, you can instantly begin connecting to people via SMS or video/audio chat. You can even share a screen during your meetings.

The To Do widget

One of the new features in Windows 11 that doesn’t look fully finished is the widgets panel. This feed has a few basic applications in it at the moment, and more are expected to come, which will make it even more useful. You get to this panel through an icon on the taskbar, and the widget feed can be tailored with local weather, traffic, news, and more.

One of the helpful features you can use right now is the To Do widget. It allows you to quickly create a task list and check off those tasks without having to open another application.

The widget can be added in seconds to your panel and can be quite a time-saver because of the easy access right from your desktop.

Streamlined Start/Search Menu

If you’re still using your File Explorer to search for documents, you can save a lot of time by using the Start/Search Menu instead. Click the Windows icon on the taskbar (which has now been moved to the middle instead of far left) and type your search keyword at the top.

This is a master search that will bring up documents, settings, applications, and even web pages. Searching using the Start Menu is faster than trying to find a file in the Explorer.

The newly streamlined interface also reduces the clutter of the old Windows Start Menu making it easier to get where you need to go and find the programs you use every day.

Task view

Task view is the virtual desktop feature that had been introduced in Windows 10. This remains a very handy feature for separating the different areas of your work to stay focused.

You can use the task view icon on the taskbar to create a different virtual desktop with different open applications and documents. For example, you could keep your email open on one virtual desktop and then use another when you’re in a video call and sharing screens.

How Distributed Cloud Computing Enhances User Experience

As cloud technology is gaining popularity, businesses are encountering challenges such as security and reliability. This explains why the cloud market, edge computing, multi-cloud, and hybrid cloud are staging the ground for distributed cloud computing.

New generations are ready to move on from traditional methods and technologies to the cloud. This is possible once businesses access the distributed cloud computing technology to enhance user experience and other tasks.

What is distributed cloud computing?

Distributed cloud computing is a technology that provides businesses with better knowledge about the market to fulfill customers’ needs with inexpensive IT systems. There are three origins of the distributed cloud:
• Public cloud
• Hybrid cloud
• Edge computing

Benefits of distributed cloud computing

Public cloud providers distribute services in different locations. The facilities are available to organizations that require low latency computational abilities.

This will help control the consistency in the location to manage the public and cloud infrastructure through a single channel.

Distributed cloud computing will provide major benefits with improved performance. This is possible after eliminating the latency problems and reducing the risk of control plane inefficiencies or global network outages.

With the distributed cloud, you can create cloud networks, storage, and compute in a shared environment. These storage networks are available in different zones. Some experts call these zones substations, which makes a lot of sense after understanding their qualities.

For instance, you can use the nearest branch of the local post office to avail their services.

The support, innovation, and productivity will not change because the public cloud providers will be responsible for managing distributed cloud substations.

Below, you will find some benefits of the distributed cloud:

Distributed cloud will increase compliance

This will ensure that the data is available in a specific location where customers can easily avail benefits.

The system will reduce the risk of network failure as the data is available in local and semi-local subnets. Different compute zones will be available with an increasing number of locations.

Distributed cloud computing and enhancement of user experience

Distributed cloud computing tools enable businesses to process data in real-time. They can also manage their data and create a data foundation. They can enhance the user experience by driving new and innovative strategies with accuracy, consistency, and relevant data.

Distributed cloud computing solutions allow businesses to customize their solutions to develop long-term customer relationships and offer faster, seamless services.

With this advanced version of cloud computing, they can enhance their responses to discover customer preferences.

Distributed cloud computing and the future

Technology experts are planning the future of distributed cloud computing by keeping in mind the business sector’s needs, interests, and similar industries. They focus more on cloud strategy, which concisely provides faster and better solutions to businesses.

Technology plays a vital role in enhancing business performance. However, businesses still need a solution so they can simplify their complicated IT structures. To drive better outcomes, businesses require an IT solution such as distributed cloud computing to simplify their tasks and activities and facilitate their customers with a better user experience.

Grow Your Business With Influencer Marketing

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

Traditional influencer marketing means relying on celebrities and famous bloggers to generate traction about your brand. However, as time changes with the boom of social media, the number of influencers in the market is rising.

The influencer marketing technique involves affiliating with famous social media celebrities and bloggers for the purpose of promoting product or services to their followers.

While collaborating with influencers, identify their audience reach and engagement. This marketing tool’s main purpose is to drive sales and build your brand’s credibility.

Campaign surrounding KPIs
Influencer campaigns are exciting and attractive because of numerous ideas and sparks in the campaigns. [Read more…] about Grow Your Business With Influencer Marketing

How To Choose The Best POS System For Your Business

A good POS system will not only help you manage the transaction, it also enhances your cash flow system. With these two factors in play, you can easily grow your business.

By implementing an advanced POS system, you can provide numerous payment options to your customers. These options include online payments, card payments, and cash payments. Furthermore, it also simplifies your business. An effective all-in-one point-of-sale system will help you efficiently perform administrative tasks.

While selecting a point of sale system, you need to consider various factors, including your business type. For instance, if you have a restaurant, your business process will be different than a retail business. Therefore, you need to choose a system specific to your business needs.

How to Choose a POS System: Identify your needs
First, you need to understand your business requirements. Your goal is to find the best solutions to your problems. However, you cannot make a better decision without identifying and considering your problems. Therefore, you need to ask some questions. The answers to these questions will lead you to pick the right solution:

  • What type of product do you sell?
  • How do you accept the payments?
  • How many people do you have on your team?
  • What payment method do your customers prefer?
  • How will you interact with your audience?
  • What type of solution are you currently using?

Perform market research
After answering all the above questions, you can use a search engine to list down the best options according to your needs. However, with so many options, you might feel overwhelmed. Below, you will find some best tips that will lead you in the right direction:

  • Check the system that your competitors are using.
  • Communicate with the POS system provider and seek help from professionals
  • Visit tech websites

Check the features of service providers
After shortlisting your options and narrowing it to two to three POS systems, you can investigate the services they are offering. Here are some factors that you should consider while evaluating your options:

  • What features are they offering?
  • How will their system work for your business?
  • What is the price of the tool?

Download the trial version
Once you complete your research about the best POS system for your system, you should download and install the trial version. When you perform the actions on a trial version, you can understand if this tool will benefit your business or not and how well it fits your company.