Technology Is the New Normal
With the “Great Recession” more than six years old and corporate hiring still not picking up substantially, many experts are suggesting that the current unemployment situation has become the new normal. When the economic crisis hit, companies and their employees had to learn to do more with less, and in most cases this meant working [...] Read full article...
Video Conferencing: Save Money and the Planet, too
Many companies, especially those with dispersed workforces or client bases, have discovered the economic benefits of video conferencing, also called telepresence. Those that haven’t might want to consider the environmental benefit of this valuable business tool, as well. Although each company’s reduction in carbon footprint from video conferencing might not be much (especially if it [...] Read full article...
Achieving Best Practices for IT Service Management
Many service providers talk about “best practices” and “excellence” in IT Service Management. However, few introduce to their customers (or adhere to, themselves) a documented framework for best-practices planning, delivery and support of IT services. Officially called the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®), this widely accepted framework is a cohesive yet constantly evolving set of best [...] Read full article...
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: Do You Know Your Magic Numbers?
For many small to medium-sized business (SMB) owners, disaster recovery and business continuity (DR/BC) are nebulous concepts to be dealt with “when there is time.” The problem for many (more than 50%) is the “right” time never comes, leaving them unprepared when disaster strikes. Yet, in the past year, many SMBs are realizing that disasters [...] Read full article...
Network Assessments – Who Really Needs Them?
Your network runs pretty well most of the time. Sometimes, it seems a little slow, but usually, it works well enough to keep business humming along reasonably smoothly. Your network is in good shape, right? If this sounds like your business, think again. Nine out of 10 corporate networks have some type of problem, from [...] Read full article...
Proactive Management is Key to Infrastructure Reliability
Technology is a benefit that’s wonderful and infuriating at the same time. The more dependent we become on it, the more we are negatively affected when it fails us. Unfortunately, that problem isn’t going anyway any time soon. The only way to resolve it is to minimize the potential for system disruption. So, how can [...] Read full article...
Hiring Outlook for 2013: IT Experts on Demand, not on the Payroll
With 2012 an increasingly distant memory, have you considered how your IT systems fared last year? Are you implementing any big changes in 2013? If you are an upper-level IT executive, statistics show that this year, you are probably redirecting responsibility from internal staffers to third-party resources. Whether you are an IT exec or a [...] Read full article...
Spam Hits Five-Year Low—So Why Should You Be Concerned?
by Dave Moorman In January 2013, Internet security firm Kaspersky proclaimed that in 2012, spam hit a five-year low. Specifically, the report stated, “This continual and considerable decrease in spam volumes is unprecedented.” However, before you and your employees dance in the streets at the thought of less spam, consider this: Kaspersky attributed the reduction, [...] Read full article...
Telecommuting Today: What Can It Do for Your Business?
by Dave Moorman In the 1990s, terms such as telecommuting and teleworking became popular descriptions for the pursuit of work outside the office—with the help of technology. (Telecommuting usually referred to work at home; telework sometimes referred to work at a satellite office.) Today, those terms are being replaced by newer catchphrases like workshifting and [...] Read full article...
Vulnerability Assessments and Penetration Testing: Same Thing; Different Name?
by Dave Moorman In the IT security world, service firms toss around terms such as Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing as if everyone knows what they mean. This may leave you wondering, “What do these two processes do, and are they both important or do they cover the same ground, twice?” Vulnerability Assessment (also called [...] Read full article...