Gmail is a great way to take advantage of business email, but do you know all of the ins and outs of how to use some of its finer details? Today’s tip is dedicated to going over some of the more useful features of Gmail, like filters and labels--both of which will be helpful in controlling your inbox.
Put yourself in the shoes of a cybercriminal. If you were to launch a ransomware attack, who would be your target? Would you launch an indiscriminate attack to try to snare as many as you could, or would you narrow your focus to be more selective? As it happens, real-life cybercriminals have largely made the shift to targeted, relatively tiny, ransomware attacks.
Your business relies on its technology being maintained properly, but it’s not always as simple as updating a software application or replacing a hard drive following a catastrophic failure. You have to think about who you’re paying to maintain your technology solutions, if there’s anyone doing it at all. You need to consider what happens when you lose data or when your organization experiences downtime. How do you keep technology from becoming a hindrance for your business?
Managed IT is one of the best ways your organization can capitalize on its technology without worrying about whether or not you’re maintaining it properly. The ideal way for a small business to manage its technology is to have professionals handle it while you focus on other aspects of the management process.
In other words, let’s ask you a question; is your business running as smoothly as possible? Can you honestly say that you have time in your day to handle multiple technological troubles, as well as all of your other responsibilities? Upper-level executives like the CEO and COO have other responsibilities that are more pressing, and as such, technology maintenance is often left to your employees, who may (or, more likely, not) know what they’re doing. Technology maintenance is something that should always be done by professionals, as any mistakes could become costly mistakes that lead to downtime caused by having to do the same work twice, or even your technology failing completely.
Imagine what would happen if a hardware failure occurred and you lost the entirety of your business’ data. What would you do then?
Instead of relying on your employees, who have other jobs to do as well, managed IT can make sure that your organization’s technology is always maintained. Since a managed IT provider like Telesys Voice and Data is dedicated to maintaining your business’ technology, you won’t have to worry about other tasks getting in the way of it happening. You’ll receive customized service and solutions based on your service agreement, as well as the opportunity for more great tools such as unified communications, security solutions, data backup and disaster recovery, remote monitoring and maintenance, and so much more--all to make sure that your organization can run as optimally as possible.
To learn more about managed IT services and support, reach out to Telesys Voice and Data at (800) 588-4430.
There’s no denying that digital records have quite a few advantages over paper documentation. Benefits of ‘going paperless’ include simplified search capabilities, more efficient storage, heightened security and automated backup capabilities. There are plenty of sources around the Internet that discuss making the switch to paperless documentation, but to keep your business documents safe, it is better to know what you’re getting into.
Google Drive provides its users with a considerable amount of utility. However, when combined with extensions made for Google’s Chrome browser, users have the tools to make their use of Drive’s capabilities even more efficient. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over a few Chrome extensions that your business might find useful.
Communication is one of the cornerstones on which your business functions, and without it, you will find that going about your daily duties is considerably more difficult. Communication is one of the many ways your organization accomplishes both major and minor tasks, so you want to pay especially close attention to how your business handles phone calls, email, and even mobile devices--both in and out of the office.
Unified communications include several solutions that your organization can use to stay connected, including a unified email solution, mobile device strategy, and a telephone solution. All of these types of solutions should be built around today’s expectations of mobility and flexibility. Here are some of the ways your business can build out a unified communications system that improves connectivity.
Email
Email has long been a staple of business, but how do your employees use it? Do they access it on multiple devices? Do they use the same email service (Hint: They should)? An employee who prefers Gmail over Microsoft Outlook might decide that they would rather use the solution they are most comfortable with. This is an issue, as it spits in the face of your attempt at unified communications.
Email is most useful when it’s kept to your preferred email solution, so you should ensure that your organization is prepared to spend time on training employees how it works. The solution you choose should be one that can be used on several different devices so as to provide your employees with maximum choice in how they use the email system. If you’re worried about hosting your email server, Telesys Voice and Data can help you out with that, too.
Mobile Device Management
Mobile devices are all over the place now, and your business could benefit from having them become a part of your infrastructure. However, they need to be managed properly, as the more apps have access to your business’s data, the more exposure it gets to potential threats. You need to make sure that you’re prepared to handle this influx of mobile devices if you’re hoping to provide a truly unified communication infrastructure for your organization.
Beyond compatibility, you want to make sure that your organization is prepared to handle lost or stolen devices, fraudulent apps, and other security risks. Telesys Voice and Data can help you whitelist and blacklist apps, as well as remotely wipe lost or stolen devices. This helps you keep your data as safe as can be.
Unified Voice over IP
Traditional telephone solutions don’t take the flexibility of the modern business in mind. Landlines tend to bundle together services with little flexibility, leading to organizations overpaying for services that they don’t need. If you’re paying for services that you don’t need, you’re wasting assets that are better spent elsewhere. Furthermore, you’re limited to taking calls on your work phone in your office, hampering your ability to be productive while out of the office or on a business trip.
A Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application is one of the best solutions an organization can implement, as they often work across multiple types of devices and work from a shared database of contacts. Your workers will always have access to client information, even when they aren’t in the office. Employees have the option of using their smartphone, desktop, or traditional handset. Having VoIP makes using Unified Communications so much easier for businesses.
To learn more about unified communications solutions, reach out to Telesys Voice and Data at (800) 588-4430.
There are some facets to IT that are universally accepted as important, such as security. However, there are also others that create some conflicting opinions between management and IT personnel. When surveyed, business leaders and IT management held vastly different opinions as to the importance of various IT tasks. Is there a way to unify these priorities?
Using pirated software or abusing your software licenses for your business is heavily frowned upon. However, many software companies, in an attempt to protect their products, have unleashed a practice that can actually reward those who let it happen in the first place.
Considering how often smartphones are replaced, you’re bound to have a couple of them stashed away for a rainy day. These devices are particularly helpful in the event that your smartphone breaks unexpectedly, but there are other purposes that you might want to keep in mind. Here are three ways you might be able to use your old mobile devices around the office.
Security is an aspect of running a business that absolutely cannot be ignored, regardless of whether or not you see it as a considerable issue in the near future. The fact remains that your organization will always be at risk unless you take actions to keep it safe today. By taking advantage of some of the latest and greatest security tools on the market, you’ll be able to protect not only from the basic threats, but more advanced ones as well.
No matter how advanced technology becomes, it can fall victim to even the most basic of threats if left unchecked. Your desktop workstation is certainly not immune to threats like viruses, malware, spam, and so much more, and even the most vigilant business could expose its infrastructure to these common threats. Since consumer-grade services are likely not strong enough to protect your business’s important data, you’ll need to turn to enterprise-grade solutions that can be tricky for small businesses to afford.
One of the greatest ways you can protect your organization is by implementing a Unified Threat Management tool that fulfills the roles of various security solutions in one convenient package. For example, you could implement an enterprise-grade antivirus and firewall to keep threats out of your infrastructure and promptly eliminate those that do infiltrate your defenses. Furthermore, preventative solutions like spam protection and content filtering can limit your organization’s exposure to threats in the first place, which saves time and money in the long run.
More advanced security protections, however, are certainly important for your business as well. Some of the more powerful measures include two-factor authentication and biometric scanning. Two-factor authentication is particularly important, as it provides a secondary credential that must be used to gain access to important information and accounts. Basically, it forces hackers to do even more work to break into an account, as they would have to physically steal your smartphone or other device to which the secondary credential is being sent to, all just to access an account and maybe find something useful.
Biometrics, on the other hand, are a bit harder to fake. Using fingerprint scanners or iris scanners make it considerably more difficult to unlock devices. A hacker would basically have to have the exact same fingerprint or iris as you, so unless there is some incredibly shady business going on, they won’t be able to access your devices.
How does your business secure its sensitive information and data infrastructure? Telesys Voice and Data can help your business avoid considerable security troubles. To learn more, reach out to us at (800) 588-4430.
Intel recently found itself (once again) in hot water, mere months after many flaws were discovered in the firmware that enables all of their chips to do their job. This time, the issue could have potentially caused a permanent dip in the CPU’s capacity to function properly. This has come to be known as the Meltdown vulnerability.
2FA, or two-factor authentication, is a simple and effective means of boosting your cybersecurity. Despite this, a study performed by Duo Labs suggests that 2FA has not been adopted as much as one might expect, or as much as it should be.
People spend a lot of money on the Internet. From an individual standpoint, the amount the average person spends on Internet-based services is their largest expense outside of the money they spend on their residence, and perhaps their transportation costs. In order to understand the landscape of what is effectively a battle for Internet supremacy, you first have to take a look at the battlefield itself.
As of September, of the 7.5 billion people on the planet, nearly 3.9 billion of them (51.7%) use the Internet. In North America, 88.1 percent of people (or roughly 320 million) use the Internet in some fashion. This presents opportunities for thousands of companies. Some provide Internet access to would-be consumers. Some deliver content services. Some deliver applications, computing storage, or processing. This has led to the marketing boom you see on the Internet today; and, is where you find a battle raging between the demand created by billions of consumers, and the companies that deliver the services needed to access that customer base.
A lot of questions have been asked recently about what the Internet is. Questions like:
Questions like these produce a variety of answers. With the smoldering embers of the U.S. net neutrality laws suggesting further corporate control of the Internet, we’ll look at the way the Internet is set up in 2018, the costs for businesses and individuals, and why the companies that control access to the Internet are licking their proverbial chops; and, how it challenges the core interpretation of what exactly the Internet is.
The Internet in 2018
The Internet has come a long way in a short time--so far it seems, that it’s hardly recognizable. The Internet of 2018 will continue to be the predominant marketplace in the world. It is seemingly in the process of being consolidated. In fact, 50% of Internet traffic in North America is from 35 websites. In 2007, that same amount of traffic was spread around several thousand websites.
Whether or not a handful of companies own most of it is irrelevant to a consumer, but it’s getting to the point where the product is so consolidated that prices will almost assuredly increase. It’s like Gap Inc. They own The Gap (obviously), Old Navy, Banana Republic, J Crew, H & M, and a few other companies that do largely the same thing: manufacture and sell clothes. Each of these retailers has its own branding and its own management teams, but the money goes to the same place.
The Internet, for all its vastness and entrepreneurial promise, is seemingly controlled, like many industries in the United States, by heavy hitters--companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. Without playing by their rules, many companies may as well peddle their wares from a kiosk at the local mall. 80% of referral traffic comes from Facebook and Google. This is why many retailers’ sustainability is tied to how they are able to properly advertise their product...for these two company’s search algorithms. Today, tens of thousands of marketing companies have supplied the immense demand to build constructs that meet the demands outlined by the masters of the Internet.
The Cost
The Internet is extremely important to us. Our business, and our clients’ businesses, rely on it every single day. We aren’t alone, and in many ways, the Internet is the newest (and arguably last) frontier. If something were to happen and the Internet were to go out for an extended period of time, tens-upon-tens of thousands of businesses, including ours, would likely cease to be. The truth is that we’d pay what we’d have to pay for Internet service.
For individuals who have come to depend on the Internet, they likely feel the same way. There is a story of Stamford professor, Jeff Hancock, who used to ask his students to try and stay off the Internet for 48 hours over the weekend and see how it affected their lives. In 2009, when he assigned the task, “...there was a class revolt,” Hancock said, “The students emphatically said the assignment is impossible and unfair.” They stated several reasons for their near-constant Internet use, but it was clear that the biggest reason is that every one of those students had a mobile device that had made near-ubiquitous Internet accessibility a major part of their lives. They paid for access, and didn’t think it was reasonable for their professor to run rough-shot over their lives (for 48 hours). This new world that is so dependent on computing can be seen in the numbers. In September of 2009, a quarter of the world’s population, 1.7 billion people used the Internet. That number would double by December of 2013.
This growth in demand for Internet access (affordable or otherwise), which you can now see in parts of central Asia and Africa, created markets, which in turn created more markets, and nearly overnight, the Internet went from what could be considered a novelty to a must-have utility-like entity--as necessary as food and water to some. In fact, it’s easy to relate. Think about how much you use the Internet. It’s enough to purchase it for your home AND for a mobile device. If you take your mobile data plan into account, the average U.S. and U.K. consumer pays over $100 a month (just over £73) to have near-ubiquitous Internet service.
The invention of social media has made it even more necessary to people. In the United States alone, over half of people (nearly 180 million) use social media. As a culture, we rely so heavily on it, the President uses social media nearly every day to comment on situations, and in some cases, state changes to federal policy. The combination of mobile devices and social media, e-commerce, and secure payment has created an insatiable demand for Internet access, Internet-based services, and the speed to properly broadcast all the content that people today have come to use.
In some places Internet costs more, and people pay it. In fact, people have so bought into the Internet that a whole generation of people would be completely lost without access to it. Whether that is a problem or not is a matter of opinion, but whether you pay $60 a year for Internet like the average Iranian, or $3000 per year like some do in Southeast Asia, people will compromise their own well-being for an Internet connection.
The Economy of the Internet
Projecting the economy of the Internet into the future is like projecting anything’s future state. It is largely unreliable. Today, the Internet is going through another shift. Looking past the hosted utility computing craze that we see today, you see a world that is completely connected. The Internet of Things, the title given to the act of connecting all things, is in its infancy, but some estimates have it being as big as 11 percent of the global economy by 2025. This strategy not only warrants the production of products that have the capabilities of being connected, it also makes certain that more money will be put into securing these systems.
The current state of the Internet’s economic success is a hotly debated issue by economists. On one hand, many, like Northwestern professor, Robert Gordon, suggest that as good as the Internet has been at growing economic productivity, it’s shockingly less important than the establishment of electricity-producers at the turn of the 20th century. This is largely because productivity (that is, the creation of tangible goods) has shifted from manufacturing goods to fulfilling service requests. The Internet of Things, however, alters this thought, clearly presenting ways to boost efficiency and revolutionize traditional business operations in manufacturing, transportation, communications, and retail.
The new economy of the Internet is tied up in “things,” but that’s not to say that there isn’t an immense amount of commerce taking place. Ecommerce generates over $2.3 million every minute, every day, or roughly $3.3 billion a day; almost a quarter of which changes hands over wireless mobile networks. These levels of enterprise will be growing exponentially as the IoT grows.
Net Neutrality and Its Elimination
There are currently around 2,700 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the United States. With this amount, it is really impossible to consider that there isn’t enough competition. Some critics, however, have stated that there are a handful of ISPs that control access to the Internet for most Americans. The FCC had stated many times that Net Neutrality actually hurt ISP competition. While there were some that would corroborate that claim, many smaller ISP owners considered it only a pain when they couldn’t secure capital that would allow them to deliver service that customers have come to expect. Some even considered net neutrality a good thing, since the money content providers such as Netflix would be forced to invest, would be invested in larger ISPs such as AT&T, Comcast, and Spectrum.
When the FCC decided to roll back the net neutrality laws in December of 2017, it became evident that a more laissez-faire attitude over the regulation of ISPs will have a long-term effect on consumers. Thus far there hasn’t been much of a change, but going forward it will be corporate entities regulating themselves, as the FCC gave up all regulation of Internet providers.
Expect the ISPs to consolidate further through acquisition, and to establish a pricing structure that will allow them to maximize the profitability of their service. It remains to be seen if net neutrality is finished forever, or if the repeal of the mandate will increase infrastructure spending as many of the ISP lobby have suggested.
The Internet is important for individuals and business, alike, and it’s growing larger and larger by the day. The more the third-world develops infrastructure and allows the other half of the human race access to the Internet, the more important the Internet will seemingly become. For more great information about today’s most important technology topics, sign up for our newsletter today.
The Internet has enabled businesses to establish relationships on a global scale. Now, an upscale restaurant in Minneapolis can use the Internet to order ingredients from a vendor in Bordeaux. However, there can easily be a language difference when doing business internationally. This is when it is fortunate that Windows 10 makes it so easy to change your device’s language.
Today’s business relies on mobile devices, like smartphones, to guide them to productivity and efficiency. In fact, the vast majority of people in today’s society own a smartphone. A report shows that 90 percent of people younger than 30 own a smartphone, which means that the forward-thinking business hiring talented millennials may want to start thinking about how to secure any mobile devices that they use to access company data.
Email scams have become a sort of punchline, often featuring Nigerian princes or wealthy, unknown relatives in need of funds to get home. However, another email scam is anything but amusing, as it uses a unique possession of the target to entice them to comply: their life.
Downloading an application on an Android device is fairly simple: access the Google Play store, find the app you want to download, and press the button that says install. However, it is also too easy to simply hit ‘Allow’ once the app starts asking for ambiguously-worded permissions. Today, we’ll examine what these permissions actually mean.
The Internet is rife with potential threats. Some are situational, but most are deliberate actions made by malicious entities who are trying to obtain any semblance of value from you or your company. Some of these exploits have been around longer than you’d imagine possible. This has been made evident by huge Internet-based companies such as PayPal and Facebook testing positive for a 19-year-old vulnerability that once allowed hackers to decrypt encrypted data.
As we discuss business technology, we occasionally broach topics that not everyone may be familiar with. Despite the recent media coverage that has been afforded to it, Bitcoin and blockchain technology may be a good example of one such topic. To resolve this, we’ve put together the following primer on this technology and how it will impact data security in the future.
Your data is one of the most important assets at your business’ disposal. It’s really indispensable. Not only are large amounts of it the result of successful operations, it also can help your organization better understand the intricacies of its own operations, and where you want it to go in the future. Does your business have a process for collecting, storing, and sorting vital data so that your organization can figure out where to go next?
At Telesys Voice and Data our technicians come to work every day to help organizations like yours make full use of your technology. Moreover, we are just starting to realize the potential of data ourselves. By having our certified technicians build a dedicated data warehouse, you are creating a construct that embraces the future of data analytics. This analysis may just be the key that allows your staff to strategically plan the next initiative that will take your business to the next level. Here are some of the types of data a comprehensive data warehouse will hold.
Client Information
Your business depends on the patronage of many clients--people who buy your product or service on a varying basis. However, all of your clients will have information that you want to keep on-hand in the event that you lose it. This includes contact information (like email addresses and mailing addresses) as well as phone numbers and otherwise. You should also include any information about services that you’ve rendered for them so that you’re not caught unaware should you lose records of what type of relationship you have.
Vendor Information
Similarly, your organization also depends on contact with vendors who provide the resources required in order for your business to succeed. This could be in the form of software solutions provided by a developer, or hardware issued by a distributor. Utilities, like your Internet, electricity, HVAC, etc. are equally as important, as they make your office an environment suited for work. In the event the information about your vendors is compromised or lost in any way, you will want to be ready to recover it so that your business relationships can continue to function properly.
Analytics
While storing data and backing up any data related to your vendors and clients can help your business recover in the event of a disaster, you also want to use this information to learn more about your consumer base and create a profitable future for your organization. Doing this is called analytics. Leveraging analytics is a great way to take seemingly arbitrary numbers and find trends that mean something for your business. There are applications that can help your organization find new markets, target the best client base, and identify inefficiencies that compromise your organization’s ability to turn a profit.
If your business truly wants to take advantage of data during the new year, now is the time to take the initiative and invest in data warehousing and corresponding analysis. To learn more about these solutions, reach out to Telesys Voice and Data at (800) 588-4430.
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