Technology Unwrapped

In today’s tech-savvy and tech-ready world, anyone can go out and purchase tools or enlist services to outsource business IT services. However, the real value comes from customizing all the services that wrap around those tools and making them applicable to your small business needs—instead of a one-size-fits-all approach that may only address a few of your needs. That’s where building a strong relationship with your business IT support company comes in.

For most small business owners today, running a business effectively and efficiently requires connecting to the internet. Your business systems and software likely process millions of information requests and transfers every day, and each one is an opportunity for cyber criminals to find their way into your network. That’s why it’s essential to have a firewall in place.  Simply put, firewalls keep bad things on one side and good things on the other. The benefits of firewall security run the ...

Microsoft Teams has found new life during the pandemic, as organizations scramble to find ways to work together while socially distancing.   At first glance, Teams seems to be just like every other messaging platform you have used before, but it is actually filled to the brim with features as a powerful collaborative workspace. 

Microsoft pushed Teams earlier this year with a number of features to facilitate collaboration and communication both internally and externally for an organization. Over the year, Microsoft has added several enhancements and improved features that are worth noting.

Whether it’s to touch base with your team or follow up with a manager—or even just to check in with family members—much of our lives today revolve around video calls and applications.   But not every video conferencing solution is built the same, and there are some clear go-to choices for businesses. The top contender today is Microsoft Teams, and it is quickly becoming the standard for video calling in the realm of business.  

Phone technologies date back to the nineteenth century, and our business phone systems have come a long way since then. But, no matter what industry you’re in, a phone system is one of the main modes of communication your company has with anyone inside or outside of it, including your customers and vendors. Of course, the downside of an office phone system is that it’s, well, stuck at the office, right?

Cyber security remains a top priority, and an ongoing battle, for all businesses, and a key component in that fight is implementing and maintaining a strong firewall.  The initial concept behind a firewall was to keep the “bad guys” from getting into your network and data systems. And while that goal is still paramount, most firewalls have evolved into server-like platforms that can run different software that serve different purposes.  Through these expanded capabilities, a managed firewall ...

Technology security easily tops the list of concerns for every business owner, and it’s no wonder why. Professional hackers work nonstop, searching for ways to sneak in and steal not only your data but your clients’ data, too.  In fact, according to a 2018 study by Ponemon Institute, 91 percent of the organizations that participated experienced at least one damaging cyber attack in the last two years, with 60 percent experiencing two or more attacks.

Imagine this: you’re making steady progress on your to-do list, crossing another completed project off for the week, but you have a big meeting to coordinate before you can start tackling the rest. That means gathering information from previous conversations, and to find all that information, you might have to go back quite a bit in your email inbox to find the right thread of the right email chain. You’ll be pleased to know that Microsoft offers a much better way of handling workplace ...

No matter what industry you’re in, there is value in using Microsoft Teams for your internal communication and organization. Different people and businesses can use Teams to fit their specific needs, and there are several ways to navigate and utilize the application. In this article, I’ve detailed some of the most noteworthy things I’ve discovered in my short amount of time using Teams, and, particularly in my line of work in cabling installation, I see considerable value in the versatility of ...