Shrink Your Website Downtime and Get Tech Support Questions Answered Faster

website down, get tech answers fasterEvery second that your business website is down, your software isn’t working, or your hardware is offline costs you money and customers. You need to get back up and running as quickly as possible. And while a lot depends on what you need and the quality of your tech support, you can help make it all happen a little faster.

Here’s how:

Try to Recreate the Problem

If you get an error, or can’t get a feature to work, try rebooting everything and trying again. You may even want to try the same process on a different computer. If it’s a genuine problem that needs fixing, it should happen again.…

Continue reading

Expectations For Your Outsourcer to Reduce Your Risk

5 Expectations For Your Outsourcer

Did you sign up for outsourcing figuring you could forget about IT?

Ignore the management of IT at your own risk. One company outsourced its IT, negotiating excellent rates. Sadly, the outsourcer failed to purchase software, installing the same copy again and again. Horrendous customer service created productivity issues. The company paid a penalty to exit the contract and had to purchase the unlicensed software, taking a serious hit to profitability.

In another case, the organization picked an outsourcer based on a board member’s recommendation. Now the outsourcer is struggling with tasks many would consider standard, including simple tasks like monitoring backups.…

Continue reading

Cloud Computing: Keep Your Feet on the Ground or Reach for the Sky?

Apple has recently announced the launch of its own bet for the cloud computing platform, iCloud. It seems that cloud computing is being looked into not only by business owners but consumers as well. Today, it doesn’t matter whether you have a 4GB USB flash drive or an external hard drive. Those gadgets may become obsolete like the floppy disks we used back in the day.

As a consumer, I might not be completely sold on being in the cloud although there are many benefits such as photo storage, video storage, etc.   None of us want to lose those precious memories, right?  …

Continue reading

Why SMBs Should Outsource Their ERP

Outsourcing an ERP system (enterprise resource planning) was once thought of something that only large, corporate businesses would venture in but the benefits of outsourcing ERP systems have now caught the attention of smaller companies.   Smaller companies are finding that the improved efficiencies in implementing an ERP system are more than covering the cost of outsourcing their ERP.

outsourcing ERP systems

Before we look at the benefits of outsourcing, it would be beneficial to look at what exactly outsourcing your ERP means to SMBs. This can be broken down into three basic stages:

Application hosting – This is hosting in its traditional form and is the component of hosting which most people will be familiar with.…

Continue reading

Business and IT – Adversaries or Partners?

business relationships with ITDoes your company’s Information Technology area act more like competitors rather than partners with the business?

A poor relationship with IT can be extremely detrimental to the efficiency, productivity and cost-effectiveness of your organization.

Watch for some of these warning situations:

“¢ Everyone knows HR cuts payroll checks, and finance pays vendors. IT doesn’t always have the opportunity to regularly show its value and can be taken for granted. People don’t want to talk until something is broken, or frustration has mounted to the point of eruption. IT is regularly in a reactive mode.

“¢ IT helps make operations more efficient, but change in organizations can be stressful and can create uncertainty.…

Continue reading

Top Network Security Threats for Mid-Sized Businesses

network security threatsWhen it comes to providing network security for your mid-sized business, one thing is clear: vigilance is not an option, but a necessity. Mid-sized businesses are not immune to security threats. In fact, mid-sized businesses often fall victim to security issues that strike both enterprise organizations and small businesses. Let’s take a closer look at some of the top network security threats facing mid-sized businesses today.

Lack of appropriate hardware security: Believe it or not, one of the main threats to your business’ network comes from inside the organization. Network hardware can be irreparably damaged by electrical surges, and can develop problems if exposed to extreme humidity or high temperatures.…

Continue reading

Top 5 Small Business iPhone Apps

iPhone small business apps

Small business owners have to make the most of every minute to be successful. Blackberry says their smartphones allow you to reclaim an additional 60 minutes of downtime every day (that’s 250 hours each year!) and with these 5 apps on your iPhone you may be able to do even better.

QuickOffice Mobile Office Suite

Quickoffice Mobile Office Suite takes the iPhone to a whole new level, approaching the functionality of a personal computer. Quickoffice includes Word, Excel, PDF viewers and image viewing. The foundational programs essential on every desktop, are offered to iPhone users. The app offers pristine features, and easy access to the files saved on the phone.…

Continue reading

Simplifying IT Management for SMBs

remote cloud computingIn smaller organizations, IT management can be a real challenge. Technology changes rapidly and qualified staff might not always be on-hand to maintain mission-critical systems, support users and administer the network.

This is complicated by the fact that, given no other convenient option, users will often come up with their own “duct tape” solutions to common information management problems. This can quickly snowball into messy situation where critical business information is randomly scattered across spreadsheets, email attachments, Word documents and sticky notes.

It’s disorganized information and inefficient business processes like these that can often wind up costing companies a lot of money further down the road.…

Continue reading

The Blackberry Storm – A Small Business Perspective

blackberry stormThe Storm phone is an interesting combination of Blackberry functionality with touch screen capability, and a large, clear screen. For those other small business owners without their own dedicated email server, Blackberry runs circles around Windows phones, at least on the Verizon network.

When it comes to technology, I’m not normally an early adopter. Putting up with my Windows-based Treo for the last couple years, coupled with Verizon’s release of the new Blackberry Storm sent me over the edge, running out first thing to find a store with a Storm. I have now had the phone for almost two months.

The good news:

My business and personal email boxes are now separate and I can reply from either.…

Continue reading

Google Chrome Browser Coming To A Computer Near You

chromologo.jpgGoogle has announced that the launch of their new  web browser is just around the corner!   Google Chrome will be released later today in over 100 countries, according to Google’s Official Blog.   This new web browser is said to be  fast and handles today’s web applications much better.    

The Google Chrome browser will have a homepage of nine shortcut thumbnails with your most recent search history and tabs.   The tabs themselves are multi-threaded with no communication or interference from other tabs or other applications.   Each application opens in it’s own window.  

Another great feature  will be obvious when you open a new tab.  …

Continue reading