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What You and Employees Should Never Do On Vacation

October 9, 2025August 13, 2015

You’re off to your favorite vacation spot, raring to get your well-deserved break underway when you suddenly remember the urgent email you forgot to send before leaving the office. The beachfront diner has free Wi-Fi so you figure, “Why not?” …

six things to consider before moving to the cloud

6 Things to Consider Before Moving to the Cloud

July 18, 2024May 28, 2015

It’s almost impossible to have a discussion about networking technology today without talking about “the cloud.” In fact, as of 2014, nearly 90% of all business have adopted cloud technology to some degree. So where does your business stand when it comes to implementing cloud technology? If you’ve been thinking about moving to the cloud, here are six things to consider before you make your move.

6 ways to take control of your email for better productivity

6 Tips For Better Email Productivity

October 9, 2025May 19, 2015

Email is often described as a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s a great way to communicate with just about anyone, anywhere, at any time of day. Unfortunately, that communication works both ways, letting anyone and everyone make demands on your time and energy whenever they need to.
It’s estimated that the average employee spends two hours every day handling email. That’s more than a whole day every week! With so many messages coming in, it can be hard to prioritize other work on your plate and still get everything done.
Are you spending too much time on your email? Here are some great tips to improve your email productivity and peace of mind.

Attention: windows server support is ending

Windows Server 2003 Support Ends Soon

August 16, 2023May 13, 2015

Windows Server 2003 will take a bow and head off into obscurity on July 14, 2015. It’s hard to believe that it’s really been 12 years since its release. Beloved by system admins around the world, Windows Server 2003 arrived on the scene amid the first sightings of camera phones, the introduction of Apple iTunes and the first Microsoft Xbox that revolutionized online gaming.
Since then we’ve seen the advent of multi-core processors and the growing popularity of virtualization, yet many businesses are still not taking advantage of the latest technology. While mainstream support for Windows Server 2003 ended in 2010, Windows Server 2003 accounted for 39% of the Windows Server installations worldwide as of July 2014, according to an article published by Redmond Magazine last September.
So are your business and tech systems ready when the support ends?

One of the biggest barriers to upgrading has been the high cost of entry. In most cases, servers running Windows Server 2003 are more than 6 years old, making it difficult to install newer operating systems that require more power, hard drive space and RAM. An upgrade to the latest server OS requires buying new server hardware, an expense that many companies either couldn’t justify or simply couldn’t afford.
Yet the cost savings enjoyed by businesses who have chosen not to upgrade are about to take a sharp turn for the worse. Now that extended support for Windows Server 2003 is ending, businesses will likely face an uphill battle with increasing IT costs and greater security vulnerability on their networks than ever before.

IT Disasters: Is Your Company Next?

March 27, 2024April 23, 2015

Over the last 15 years, there have been thousands of IT disasters that we have read or heard about. A few that come to mind are:

2008 the Census Bureau attempts to go paperless by using handhelds. The project failed -paper was used and the cost was in the millions.
Also in 2008, American La France builder of firetrucks in the US rushed an ERP implementation of new software and ended up filing bankruptcy.
Heartland Payment System was hacked in 2009 compromising hundreds of millions of credit card accounts.
2013 saw Target have their own issues with hackers that exposed data and credit card information that cost them millions as well.
Sony had problems with hackers in 2014 that cost them millions and exposed thousands of emails and other information that was not meant for public view.

We could go on and on listing hundreds of well-known publicized IT failures and disasters that have occurred since the year 2000 rolled in. (Of course, who can forget the great Y2K debacle that cost private businesses millions of dollars?)

3 Things to Avoid When Choosing an IT Provider

September 22, 2023April 8, 2015

When talking with business owners, we’ve found time and again that many simply don’t pay much attention to their network. For many small businesses, it takes a little blip (or worse, a major catastrophe) before they realize that their network had been neglected for far too long. In the business world, the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” rings true, perhaps most especially on the IT side of things.
A haphazard or an uninformed approach to dealing with network issues ensures a few things.

Time will be lost; and as a result, money will be lost.
Network issues will persist even after the last fire is put out.
Instability will inevitably lead to a network disaster at some point.

However, most small businesses, and a good deal of medium-sized ones, lack the resources to manage their network with an experienced staff of full-time IT experts. The solution is to choose an IT provider to perform regular network maintenance. This introduces a really interesting (and unfortunate) catch-22 to addressing network concerns: hiring the wrong IT vendor can be nearly as disastrous as doing nothing at all. According to The Digest, some of the most important things to look for in a vendor include trustworthiness, reliability, quality service, and quality customer care. I couldn’t agree more. So what are the most important things to avoid?
I’ve written extensively about this in the past, but for the sake of brevity, here are some of the most important things to steer clear of when choosing an IT professional to service your network.

8 Reasons Your Server May Be At Risk

March 27, 2024February 26, 2015

Your server is the heart of your business network. When something goes wrong, you lose access to key resources while productivity, customer service, and your bottom line suffers. Yet many businesses inadvertently compromise the security of their servers, leaving them vulnerable to hacker attacks, internal security issues or even simple power outages.
So is your server at risk?
Here are 8 things you may be forgetting that could be compromising your server’s security.

Carbonite for Small Business Backup

October 9, 2025February 17, 2015

Where would your small business be without your valuable business data – your customer records, accounting information, documents, invoices, inventory, and emails? Would replacing all the information you’ve accumulated be possible in the event of a disaster?
The truth is if you don’t have a reliable backup system in place, you risk losing your valuable business data every day. All it takes is one computer virus, an errant keystroke by a well-meaning employee, or a simple hardware failure and you could lose valuable data that isn’t easy to replace.

Maybe you already have a backup system in place. However, if you’re using unreliable tape drives or external hard drives, you might want to re-think your backup plan. If your building burned down, someone broke into your office and stole your computer equipment, or some other disaster occurred, you’d be out of luck.
Large corporations and government agencies have been using offsite backup solutions to handle their data backup needs for years – securely saving their data in the “cloud.” Yet, until recently, cloud technology was just too complicated and expensive to be practical for small business networks.
Backup solutions for small businesses have recently become a whole lot easier and more affordable. One of the most popular services out there is called Carbonite, which we often recommend to businesses with one to five workstations.

2015 New Year's Resolutions For Your Network

August 16, 2023December 30, 2014

As 2014 winds down, many of us have already made New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, get in shape, or eliminate bad habits in 2015. In the spirit of these most popular New Year’s resolutions, we thought it might be fun to apply these same concepts to our computer networks.
Here are our resolution suggestions for a happier and healthier computer network in 2015.

5 Things to Look For When Choosing an IT Service Provider

March 27, 2024December 8, 2014

Whether you’re unhappy with your current IT service provider or just started thinking about getting some help with your growing computer network, choosing a good IT service provider is paramount to the success and growth of your business. You don’t want to waste time on companies that can’t deliver what they promise. Here are some tips that can help when evaluating potential IT providers in your area.