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Productivity

Four Simple Things To Help You Get More Done In 2013

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

Making New Year’s resolutions is a cliché these days, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worthwhile. Whether we’re successful or not, I think it’s healthy to take some time each year to look at where we’re at, and what improvements make sense.

One of the biggest resolutions, of course, is to be more productive. Toward that end, here are four simple things you can do to get more done in your day.

Block non-work related websites
This one won’t be popular, but if you want to get more done, then get rid of the distractions.

Of course if part of your job is to manage the social media for your company, this doesn’t apply; for all the other workers in your office who don’t need to be on Facebook and Twitter all day, this will remove the temptation to pop on social media sites “for just a minute.” This adds up to hours of wasted company time, and zero productivity.

A content filtering firewall, or even special filtering software, can easily manage which sites you can visit. Other things to block include gambling sites, employees searching for a new job on company time, and bandwidth wasters like Youtube.

There are also many distraction-blocking apps you can use to help you disconnect. AntiSocial and Freedom will make time-sucking sites unavailable for however long you choose.

Set up remote access
With the ubiquity of fast residential Internet, it’s easy to set up a VPN to your office to access files, e-mail and programs from home (or while on the road) using remote access applications or cloud technologies.

This lets you work when forced to stay home with sick kids or to wait for the repairman to show up.

Studies show that employees generally put in several more hours of work on their own initiative if they can easily jump on their home PC to finish up a report or check their work email.

Use dual monitors
According to a University of Utah study, you can increase your efficiency by 25% just by adding a second monitor.

A second monitor increases effectiveness and usability, decreases errors from switching between applications, and makes task tracking easier. All of these factors combined show vastly improved productivity.

Put your storage in the cloud
Cloud storage began as a way to backup data, but now you can use it for file storage just like a network drive.

Cloud storage can boost productivity by giving you access to your data anytime, anywhere. Get even more done when you pair cloud services with mobile devices like iPads and smartphones.

Each of these is an easy update for us to implement. If you want more details on improving productivity in your office, just give me a call at (734) 457-5000, or send us an e-mail at support@MyTechExperts.com.

 

Increase Network Security And Productivity

By Tech Experts Staff
As a managed services provider, we regularly consult with companies about issues they would like addressed. We find that many times, a simple solution can correct their issues in one fell swoop.

What are some of the biggest concerns businesses have? The top three we hear most often are security, productivity, and network speed.

These three main issues encompass many other common issues businesses have to deal with on a daily basis and are easily resolved.

In these days with high profile businesses such as Sony, GoDaddy, Verisign, etc. being hacked this past year it’s easy to see why security is of utmost importance.

Many businesses store confidential data such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, or other personal information on their servers, and because of this, must protect that information at all costs.

So, what’s the solution to this? Having good security policies in place is a start, but a giant leap in the right direction is having a business class firewall in place.

We offer Fortinet firewalls which, when properly implemented, can stop unauthorized network access in its tracks.

Fortinet firewalls offer many different security features to keep your network safe.

Network protection features include an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), built-in antivirus solutions, and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) services. Fortinet firewalls protect your company’s, and more importantly, your client’s, private information.

Fortinet firewalls also offer the possibility of huge boosts in productivity.

In a recent study conducted by Salary.com it was found that employees waste on average 1.86 hours of work per day. That’s almost 25% of the work day!

So if this rings true to your company, you’re paying each employee for three months of work each year that they are not even doing!

What are your employees doing that is wasting so much time? Studies show that 52% of the two hours per day that employees waste were spent on non-work related websites like Facebook and Twitter.

While many companies don’t think this goes on in their business, the moment we put in one of our Fortinet firewalls, we almost always find someone on websites they were not supposed to be on during the work day.

Keeping these figures in mind, the costs associated with not having measures in place to stop these kinds of activities far out weighs the actual costs of having one of these units installed.

Once the unit is installed, we can implement web content filtering so employees cannot access time wasting websites.

Users that need access to these types of websites, like the owner of the company for instance, can have credentials to be able to override any filtering in place.

The final item that businesses strive for is a faster network. While this can be dependent entirely on the Internet connection speed your business has, it is entirely possible to have a high speed connection and still feel like your Internet is terribly slow.

So, this again goes back to web filtering. Users should not be able to download from unauthorized sites or do any activities on the network that take a large amount of bandwidth.

Also, if you have a couple of separate Internet connections, it is possible on some of our higher end Fortinet firewalls to have load balancing in place to help better distribute the load of connections out to the Internet if need be.

Whether you’re in a small business with a handful of employees or in a medium to large size company with potentially hundreds of employees, we have a firewall solution for your business.

Fortinet firewalls allow you to better manage your company and increase security, productivity, and network speed significantly.

 

What Your Company Can Do To Cook Up New Ideas

Most companies recognize that innovation and creativity are vital to their survival, but they don’t know how to plan projects that will bring the quantum leaps they’re looking for.

Design specialist Heather M. A. Fraser, in her book Design Works (Rotman-UTP Publishing), describes three essentials every business needs to generate productive innovation:

Empathy
To create products or improve services, you need to understand what your customers (or even your employees) want.

They won’t always tell you; sometimes they don’t know themselves. That means you’ve got to develop your knowledge from the inside out.

Learn everything you can about their business needs, their personal goals, their failures, and their successes, regardless of whether any of those data seem to apply to your areas of expertise at first.

What you collect can lead your organization’s imagination in unexpected directions. Before the introduction of the iPod, for example, few people realized they wanted “a thousand songs in their pocket.”

Visualization
Take what you’ve learned and add it to what your organization can do.

Brainstorm as many ideas as you can, in practical terms but without limiting yourself to what’s easy or what you’ve done before. Combine ideas and concepts that don’t obviously go together, and look for ways to maximize your strengths—always with an eye on what your customers really want.

Strategy
This is where innovation can bog down unless you’re careful to select ideas that fit with your overall business objectives and strategy. Some companies pursue too many promising ideas at once, never perfecting any of them. Others design a great new product that doesn’t apply to their market and that they don’t know how to sell.

Be creative, but be rigorous in your analysis of what the market needs and what you’re capable of delivering. Then get to work.

Choosing A New Printer For Your Office

By Tech Experts Staff
When it comes to the type of printer you use for your everyday printing needs the choice seems pretty simple doesn’t it? That may not be the case at all…

With hundreds of different printers, brands, etc. the task of finding the right kind of printer that will suit your company’s needs can be more difficult than expected.

So what should be taken into consideration when looking to buy a new printer?

Some important points to consider: Size, cost, cost to maintain, type of ink, functionality needed, and finally speed.

While most everyone can agree with the statement “you get what you pay for” that tends to hold true with printers as well.

The problem with using this sentiment as your sole deciding factor when it comes to the type of printer you need is that you can end up with a printer that is WAY too big for your company and your needs.

Many different manufacturers make copy machines that are very large. For most small businesses, a large copier is overkill.

A nice Multi-Function printer will work just fine, and save you quite a bit.

So the second thing to consider is cost. Buying a printer that doesn’t cost much generally means it’s made of inferior parts and will wear out sooner than one that would have cost a bit more money.

Cost largely determines the feature set available on a printer. Take for instance Ink Jet printers versus Laser Jet printers. Ink Jet printers are much cheaper but tend to wear out long before a Laser printer would.

While considering the cost of the printer itself it would be good to consider the cost of the cartridge as well as other maintenance items.

Some higher end printers have the ability to have maintenance kits installed; the benefit to this is that these printers tend to be able to outperform cheaper printers.

Being able to replace easily worn parts keeps a printer running well for a number of years.

What type of cartridge is best or most cost effective?

This really comes down to what the printer will be used for.

For general home users using an Ink Jet printer may be fine, and cartridges for these types of printers are much cheaper as well.

If the printer is for a business or someone that does a lot of printing, then a printer that takes toner cartridges would be a better choice.Printer functionality is a huge point to consider.

What is needed by the device? Does it just need to be able to print black and white images or are color images necessary as well? Does the printer need to be able to receive faxes? Make copies?

All are valid, important questions when considering the type of printer needed.

The final point to consider is speed. If a company needs a large amount of documents printed at one time by many different users it would be a good idea to consider a printer with a high PPM (pages per minute) rate.

Still confused what would suit your needs? Give us a call and we can get you a quote on a printer that works well for your business.

Staying Connected When You Travel

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

Summertime is vacation time for a lot of business owners, and keeping in touch with the office can be a challenge while you’re on the road. Here are some tips to stay in touch and connected – but only if you want to!

Cellular and mobile broadband
The single biggest change in mobile technology is the ubiquity of relatively high speed data service. Coverage has increased significantly, and speeds rival that of low-end landline connections.

Phones themselves have evolved – many are now small, powerful computers that are constantly connected to the Internet.

Tethering
Tethering is the act of connecting your phone to your computer so the computer can use the phone’s Internet connection. Sometimes inaccurately described as a “modem” in these situations, the phone simply acts as a gateway connecting your PC to the mobile data network.

Not all phones or providers support tethering. When available, it usually uses a USB cable to connect the computer to the mobile phone.

An option that’s becoming more popular recently is the ability of some phones to act as a Wifi hotspot. When enabled, the phone itself becomes a Wifi access point, and laptops and other Wifi-enabled devices can connect to the Internet just as they would via any other hotspot.

Cellular Hardware
If you don’t have a phone capable of sharing its Internet connection, another option are devices dedicated to providing Internet connectivity to your computer.

Many mobile providers offer USB devices that act as dedicated interfaces to the Internet using the mobile network.

Drawbacks of mobile broadband
There are two primary drawbacks to mobile broadband: Coverage, speed and cost. While decent voice service is nearly universal in all but the most remote locations in the US, good data coverage is a gamble.

It isn’t uncommon for one carrier to have “four bars” of coverage in an area, and another to have barely any, so if you travel much, particularly to more rural or remote areas, coverage matters. You can easily try out different carriers by purchasing “reloadable” service on that carrier – if the service doesn’t work, simply cancel without penalty.

Cost is another limiting factor to mobile connectivity. Most smartphones include some kind of base connectivity charge in their monthly fee, adding $20, $30, or more per month to the basic cost of the phone.

Free Wifi hotspots
At the other end of the cost spectrum are the networks of free open Wifi hotspots that you can find across the country.

Be it Starbucks, McDonald’s, local coffee houses, restaurants, bookstores, and more, many retail businesses provide Wifi as perk of doing business with them.

If your travels take you along routes populated with these types of establishments, you can travel from one to the other, taking advantage of their connectivity as you go. While technically free, the assumption is that you’re a customer – so at least buy a cup of coffee.

The drawbacks here include security and possibly speed. Depending on how heavily used the location is, your speed of access may depend on how many other users you’re sharing the connection with.

Server Maintenance: Why We Do What We Do

By Tech Experts Staff
Most small businesses have onsite servers, which is a change from years past when small businesses didn’t see the benefit of having a server in place and instead depended on sharing within a workgroup.

With the great benefits of having a server in-place comes some additional costs to make sure your investment continues to be beneficial.

Many businesses that put a server in place are always defensive about having server maintenances done within a month after putting a server in place.

The number one phrase we hear after putting a new server in is “Are you sure that needs done, we just put that server in?”

The problem with taking this approach with your new server is that you already put a substantial investment in your new hardware and want it to run great for a long time.

Neglecting the server, even if it is for a short period of time, or even if it was “just put in,” is dangerous.There are items that can go bad or cause problems if not addressed, even on a new server.

The first item and most arguably one of the most important are the server updates. Servers have to be kept up to date especially since they physically host your important data.

Allowing a server to become outdated is highly risky and potentially allows hackers access to your server via security exploits in the operating system, Internet Explorer, Adobe, etc. If these items go without their security updates you run risk of data breach.

The second item that is one of the most important items that we check is the health of your RAID disks.

Most servers (at least the ones we install) have a RAID configuration of some sort configured to help protect your server in the event of a hard disk failure.

Hard disk failure is not a matter of if it will happen but rather when it will happen.

Since this is the case we generally set our clients up on a RAID 5 configuration which allows up to two RAID disks to fail at different times.

The redundancy provided by RAID 5 configurations allows for a large amount of protection from data loss but does not guarantee it. If a business’s server was not having regular maintenances done it is very possible to have the RAID disks fail and lose all the data because it was not caught.

We have had clients bring in computers that are brand new with failed hard drives so it can and does happen at any time, even when they are brand new.

During our maintenance we also go through the logs on the system carefully combing over the entries looking for any instances that could potentially indicate a problem or an upcoming problem if let go.

If this is not done your server could be showing that it is starting to have problems but you would never know it until it is too late.

One of the logs, the Security Log, allows us the ability to see whether or not your server has had unauthorized attempts to login to it. Yes, we mean hackers trying to get in your sever and to your private data.

These are just three of the numerous areas we check with the server maintenances to ensure that your server, whether new or old, is running properly and continues to do so for years to come.

If a server is not properly maintained, it can degrade quickly into an almost useless piece of equipment and the investment you put into becomes a waste as well – not to mention the potential data loss.

Don’t waste your company’s hard earned money! Invest in systems maintenances, every month. This is the only way to prevent major issues with your server and avoid data loss or compromise.

Mobile Devices: BYOD Deserves Special Consideration

by Jeremy Miller,Technician
A good majority of people now bring a device of their own to work and many even use their own device at work. There are many reasons that this could be good or bad or down right terrible.

There are always inherent risks when employers allow employees to use a personal device at work especially if the device attaches to the network or has confidential data stored on the device.

Allowing employees to bring their own device can be very beneficial to your organization.

If you choose to allow devices you must understand the risk and create rules that keep the device from being used maliciously.

It is best practice to create an Acceptable Use Policy for Devices. This will cover a variety of things including:
• Proper use during and after-hours.
• What types of apps are allowed to be installed?
• Which type of data will the device be allowed to use.
• How to prevent abuse.

A good AUP will allow a business to allow users to bring in their own devices and use them to increase their productivity without letting the employees abuse the privilege of being allowed to use a personal device at work.

Allowing employees to bring their own device can: increase productivity at a low-cost to the business, make employees happier, and allow users to be reached at any time.

Allowing employees to bring in their own device can be bad as well. The first reason is employees’ abuse devices all the time.

In every workplace there are employees that will use their devices in a matter that is not related to work such as checking Facebook or texting when it is not necessary.

Then there are employees that will want to use their device at work and at home, but will not want to follow the Companies Acceptable Use Policy.

This is not only disobedience but risky, because many of the stipulations in the AUP are to protect the Company’s business flow. Allowing employees to bring in a device that connects to email will sometimes require an IT person to help get the email to sync with the device.

If you do not have onsite IT this can cost you money every time there is an issue with the email not syncing. The ugly part of allowing users to bring their own device is the lack of control and security.

With the lack of standardization each device is at least a little different. On top of that each app installed is a potential risk, especially the free apps that include advertising.

Risks emerge every day, this means that in order to be sure that the device is secure you will have to continuously assess the risk for each device in use.

There is always a risk that your employees could fall victim to social engineering.This is when they either knowingly or unknowingly give away confidential information to a party that is not allowed this information.

This can be mitigated by educating users on a continuous basis, a good way to do this is a lunch and learn style of meeting. All employees with a personal device being used for work should be restricted to which applications they are allowed to download.

This is because each app has its own code and permissions that are required to run it. If the permissions for the application can compromise any data at any point it should be reviewed and then allowed or disallowed.

In conclusion many companies already allow the use of a personal device for work. Trying to implement a plan after allowing the devices is much trickier because you are further limiting a user on their own device.

A plan is absolutely necessary to protect you from legal implications, and to be up front and informative of the consequences for breaking any rules outlined in the Acceptable Use Policy for Devices.

Letting your employees know what is expected will reduce the legal and liability risk that a company may face.

Will Multiple Monitors Increase Your Performance?

by Jeremy Miller, Technician
When debating whether adding another monitor will increase productivity enough to justify the cost, consider this.

• What positions would need additional monitors?
• What sizes would be necessary?
• The product you have on hand?
• Are there any other solutions?

Different jobs and job types might require additional monitors. For example, any position that needs to be viewing more than one full-screen window at a time.

People who receive information electronically, such as an email, and then have to input information into some form or database would benefit from an additional monitor.

Also any one working with large or wide documents such as an Excel document with a lot of columns. Researchers can easily read from one screen and take notes on another.

If deciding to go with an additional monitor or multiple monitors you must decide on the size to be cost efficient as well. If you just need two screens to display information then you could use screens in the range of 16 inches and 22 inches.

Going above 26 inches can sometimes decrease productivity. In some cases having very large screens or even a single very large screen can leave you searching longer for information.

Exceptions to this could be a graphic designer or a video surveillance personal. It has been found that having more smaller-sized screens than one larger screen increases productivity in low-cost monitors.

Next, consider your product on hand. By this I mean: Do you have laptops, computers, monitors, desk space, or additional ports available?

If you already have a tower and a monitor, check to see if you can support additional monitors by checking if you have an open video port. If not, then you have to add a video card or use a USB monitor, and this can add to the cost.

Most laptops and notebooks come with an external video port. Also consider the type of available video port. There are many types of video ports including VGA, DVI, HDMI and less commonly, S-Video.

If your desk area is not large enough to support more than one monitor then you would have to either add desk space or mount the monitors in a manner that meets your space needs.

If for some reason you cannot support multiple monitors but wish to increase productivity from your monitors you can always purchase a higher pixel resolution one.

A good resolution is 2560×1440; this will add desktop space with minimal monitor size increase. The higher resolution the more that fits on to one monitor.

Consider the cost of the separate options. The cost of adding a monitor to an existing computer can be costly if you also have to purchase another video card.

If you are planning on purchasing new computers it might be more cost effective to be sure that they are capable of supporting multiple monitors from the start.

The Internet: Employees Are Wasting Your Money

By Tech Experts Staff
With today’s tight budgets every business is making cuts in some fashion. One interesting fact is that, in the United States, businesses waste some $760 billion every year on unproductive payroll.

If companies could find a way to cut back on this waste, then they would not need to cut as much elsewhere.

What do employees do to waste almost a trillion dollars a year? According to numerous studies, employees waste an average of just over two hours per day on unproductive or non-work related activities.

If you take that average and multiply it across your workforce, how much money could you be saving if you knew how? Fortunately we can help!

Internet Abuse Costly
While we don’t have a way to solve all of your company’s time wasting issues, we do have several solutions for the number one time waster by employees: Internet abuse.

Internet usage is the cause of nearly 50% of wasted time in the workplace! That adds up to 364 hours of wasted time per employee per year.

This is an incredibly easy fix, technically, and there are numerous prevention measures you can implement.

Acceptable Use Policy
The first prevention measure to help to prevent misuse of company time: Let your employees know what is – and is not – acceptable on your company network.

While most employees know that being online and goofing off is not right, if they haven’t been told they tend to not think twice. Implement a comprehensive acceptable use policy in your employee handbook.

Employees should be told what is acceptable and what consequences are in place should the acceptable use policy be breached.

Implement Filtering
The second way to keep employees from misusing the company network is to have proper measures in place to prevent unauthoroized use.

Most higher end routers have the ability to add websites to a filter and block them. This is a great way to prevent employees from having access to unauthorized or unnecessary websites.

If you don’t mind employees having access to websites such as Facebook during certain hours of the day, say lunch for example, then a policy can be put in place to allow access to these websites only during the specified hours.

While we don’t recommend access to websites such as Facebook on company networks, due to the possibility of easily accessing infected websites, ads, or popups, there are some companies that allow this.

Some companies have smaller networks where it is harder to justify the cost of a high end router, but still want to be able to control their employee’s network use.

For companies like this, there are other options. For example, there are some DNS providers that specialize in blocking non-work access. You simply point your router to the service to block the websites you don’t want employees to have access to.

One other option for those on a tight budget is to manually block websites by turning on the content advisor within each computers Internet settings and allowing only those specific sites an employee needs to complete their work.

Monitor Compliance
The final step is to have some sort of monitoring system in place and let your employees know it is being checked. Letting your employees know their usage is being tracked and monitored is generally an effective deterrent.

There are many different monitoring systems that can be installed on a user’s workstation and that run silently in the background. These systems can monitor everything on a user’s computers from keystrokes to taking screen shots of a user’s computer.

If you would like to speak with us on steps to improve your businesses productivity and cut down on wasted time give us a call. No matter what the size of your business, there are steps that can be put in place to help combat this rampant problem.

Track The Right Issues To Measure Sales Efforts

If you manage a sales team, you know that sales volume is an important measure of a salesperson’s success. But you also probably realize that other metrics are useful, too.

To keep your sales force productive over the long term, pay attention to these additional areas:

• Sales volume vs. units sold. One salesperson closes a single deal worth $1 million. Another lands 10 sales worth $100,000 each. Which sales pro is more valuable to your organization? Don’t overlook salespeople who produce consistent numbers in favor of those who score an occasional high-ticket shot.

• Profitability. Generating revenue is good, but if that doesn’t translate into profits, your efforts are ultimately futile. Make sure your sales force is pursuing deals that contribute to the bottom line, not just looking for break-even sales.

• Productivity and efficiency. A salesperson who spends 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to make his or her numbers probably isn’t managing his or her time as effectively as possible. Beware of honoring Sally for all her extra hours if Jill brings in the same sales figures in less time.

• Customer service. Retaining current customers is vital to most companies. It requires time that might be spent chasing new business, though. Do you reward salespeople for keeping today’s customers satisfied, or penalize them for ignoring existing customers in favor of new ones?