Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

Microsoft’s handy little note-taking app, OneNote, is gearing up to hit the old dusty trail and retire. At least, that’s the plan for OneNote 2016, whose end of life coincides with the rest of the Office 2016 suite in October, 2020. Fortunately, most of us already have OneNote 2016’s successor installed. Wait, what?

A decade-old version of Microsoft’s popular database software SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 is losing support on July 9,2019. If your business hasn’t moved away from the software, you are looking at a few real pressing problems. Let’s take a look at the software and what options businesses that haven’t moved on from SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server R2 have going forward.

It is said that software runs the world, but it wouldn’t necessarily be so without the ability to integrate applications with others. What exactly makes these integrations possible? For this week’s tech term, we will briefly introduce you to the application programming interface, or API; and, why it's so crucial in software development today.

Every business has their version of risk management. Nowadays, with all the technology organizations use for productivity, collaboration, and communications, managing risk can often be difficult. There are numerous threats that come from the Internet that could put a damper on productivity, create inefficiencies, or shut down production entirely. Regardless of how large or small your business is, you need to prioritize the security of your computing network.

I recently read a statement from the National Security Agency (NSA) expressing concerns over the risks and vulnerabilities that come with running unpatched versions of older Windows operating systems. First, you know it’s serious if the NSA, an entity in the US who depends on the collection and processing of information, is worried that your personal information is at risk. Second, it’s another in a long line of reasons to not allow your network to fall into such disarray that you can no longer protect it.

Look, we get it… work isn’t always the most fun thing in the world. In fact, it can often be downright stressful - especially when distractions get in the way. Fortunately for our sanity, there are plenty of ways to help reduce - or even eliminate - this stress. We’ll go over a few of those ways here.

Ransomware has become a favorite attack vector for hackers - after all, for them, it’s pretty much a no loss game. They either get paid, or they move on to their next target. Unfortunately, cyberattackers that dispatch ransomware often do get paid, and these payments can sometimes come from a surprising source: cybersecurity firms.

Have you ever wondered what happens when hackers gain access to state-developed malware tools? Well, now you don’t have to; a type of malware called Double Pulsar, that has been utilized in the past by the NSA, was bundled with a Chinese hacking tool and used to carry out attacks on Hong Kong and Belgium in 2016. Needless to say, this threat is unnerving.

Waking up and going to work is the inevitable reality for billions of people, and sometimes people have a hard time acclimating to a new job. If that job is an office, there are some particular issues you will have to confront in order to get the most out of your time at work. Today, we look at five simple things you can do to make your life easier inside your office.

Businesses are expected to make a choice regarding which solutions they will utilize. Typically they choose between Google’s or Microsoft’s productivity solutions. The unfortunate side of the choice is that they are often used exclusively, meaning there was little interoperability between the two. Nowadays, however, Google is moving to allow users to edit Microsoft Office files in Google Docs.

Ransomware hasn’t let up. It is important to understand that any organization, of any kind, is a potential target of a ransomware attack - and yes, this includes municipalities. In fact, since 2013, over 170 government systems at the county, city, or state levels have been attacked.

As you have likely realized, the technology solutions that power your business today aren’t going to be effective forever. This means that you will at some point need to upgrade this technology - but this isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Here, we offer a few tips to help you make it over some of the hurdles that a change to your technology can bring.

With so much on the line for businesses that deal with sensitive information, security needs to be considered a top priority. Unfortunately, one solution that works for every threat out there doesn’t exist. The right combination of enterprise-level security solutions can help your business secure its important data.

Whoops! Didn’t mean to delete that, did you? We’ve all found ourselves having accidentally deleted something important. Below, we’ll review how - with any luck - you might be able to restore this data.

Gmail is a widely used email client for both individuals and businesses, and as such, it’s a valuable tool that helps them get the most out of the workday. Gmail provides an incredible amount of space to store, archive, and sync messages with other email providers, but the biggest draw by far is its third-party integration tools. Today we’ll take a look at four of the best Gmail integrations that your organization can take advantage of.

Cloud computing has taken the business world by storm. It wasn’t so long ago that businesses had to pay in-house technicians good money to design, research, and purchase all the hardware needed to run an onsite server. This is an expensive endeavor, and for a small business may not always be at the top of a list of priorities. Today, cloud computing can solve that problem (and many more), but if you don’t closely manage your cloud costs, it can end up wasting capital. Today, we will look at cloud computing’s tendency for organizations to go overboard on their cloud offerings.

Cloud computing provides a great deal of benefits for many businesses due to its constant availability, pricing structure, and its penchant for being the most easily scalable computing platform. It offers a lot of options that can help an organization control its computing costs when they are constantly fluctuating the amount of resources they need.

On the surface, Microsoft OneNote seems to be a pretty basic program - it’s just a quick place to jot notes, right? In actuality, OneNote offers functions far beyond that of a digital scratchpad. For this week’s tip, we’ll review some of these functions.

Wearable technology, or “wearables”, have been around for decades, technically first becoming popular with Pulsar’s Calculator Wristwatch in the 1970s. Since then, our wearables have become much more capable, accumulating detailed profiles on us as we use them. This begs the question… who is in charge of regulating them?

A small-to-medium-sized business, by definition, isn’t going to have the same resources that are afforded to enterprise corporations, especially where its IT is concerned. However, this doesn’t mean that the SMB is stuck using sub-par solutions. Here, we’ll review a few key needs of any business, and the solutions that an SMB can access to meet them.