Business Solutions & Software Group Blog

Chances are, you’ve at least heard the term firewall before. A fairly recent term, it was first used as a computing term in the 1983 movie WarGames before it was ever introduced into mainstream computing. Thanks Matthew Broderick! Since then, the term has expanded and grown to include a variety of approaches. Let’s dig into what a firewall does, as far as each of the various types are concerned.

Downtime avoidance isn't exactly an art, but organizations that do it best often find themselves in much better positions than competitors that deal with more downtime. They deal with the expense of it, the lack of productivity that comes from it, and the multitude of ways where they can avoid it. Uptime is the name of the game, and today, we’re going to talk a little bit about how we like to remove downtime from the scenario. 

When you work with technology as much as we do, there’s a bit of lingo that you pick up here and there. Of course, we then have a habit of using the terminology that we’ve picked up all the time, forgetting that not everyone has the same experience that we do. One word that causes this a lot is SSID. Here, we’ll discuss what we’re referring to when we use this term.

Today, while the world is still effectively split between PCs and Macs, we have at least one file format that bridges the divide: the PDF. This file format became standard in business communications, and is now used the world over. Today, we’ll dive into the history of the Portable Document Format and why it is so well-suited to business processes.

Businesses all over the world are making strides to limit printed documents if they aren’t needed, and a large part of this is that printers require a lot of specific resources. Depending on the model, a printer might need ink, but the laser printers require a product called “toner” to work as intended. This week’s tech term is dedicated to the difference between ink and toner, as well as which one you’ll need for your specific printer.

Smartphones and tablets are a double-edged sword for businesses: on one hand, they are a great money saver if an employee is willing to use their own for business purposes, but this does leave your business vulnerable in a few ways. Fortunately, if the benefits are something you’re interested in, these vulnerabilities are simple enough to shore up with something called mobile device management.

People use computers for almost everything nowadays. However, when they don’t work as intended it can be endlessly frustrating. Whether you have hardware that isn’t properly connecting, or you have software that isn’t responding the way it normally does, many times before you call for assistance there are things you can do to try and fix the problem, or at the very least, understand what the issue is. This process is called troubleshooting. Today, we’ll take a look at what it means to properly troubleshoot computer issues, and when it is your responsibility to look to the professionals as to not cause more problems than when you started.

Authentication isn’t an unfamiliar aspect in everyday life. Driver’s licenses, library cards, and PIN numbers are all forms of identity authentication. However, as computers have become a cornerstone of everyday life, the most commonly-used way to confirm one’s identity has almost assuredly become the username/password login combination. Today, we’ll take a deeper dive into what authentication is.

Network is a word that’s commonly seen in the office environment in many different ways. In particular, you’re likely to hear about network security, network maintenance, social networking, and network switches, but what does it all mean? In this week’s tech term, we’re going to address what a network is and how it works to tie your business together.

The word “computer” actually originated in the 1600s, when it was used to describe a person who carries out calculations and the requisite processes. Today, those processes are carried out mechanically. Let’s examine the piece of the computer that allows it to do so, the CPU.

If you know more about your organization and its customers, you’ll be able to make better decisions about the future of your business. Thanks to an increased focus on business intelligence, even small and medium-sized businesses can take advantage of these analytical tools to improve operations and customer relations. What is business intelligence? How does it work, and why does your business need it?

We often take for granted that people know what we are talking about when we talk about popular connectors, but really how do these systems work? For this week’s tech term, we are going to take a look at something we all have used and probably are actively using: the Universal Serial Bus (USB). We will take a look at the origins of this technology, the development of it, and how it is being used today.

Chromebooks are becoming more and more popular with the general technology user, and for good reason. They have features that make them quite desirable for a lot of people, but also due to these features, they aren’t for everyone. This week’s Tech Term is the Chromebook, so let’s take a closer look at what they are and what they do.

With businesses relying more and more on portability and mobility, it should come as no surprise that businesses also have to devote more time to the proper management of their wireless network. A considerable portion of this management is reliant on the router the business uses, as without the router, the business simply couldn’t have a wireless connection.

There are countless examples of words that have evolved to meet the needs of their times. Meat once referred to solid food of any kind before it came to mean the edible flesh of animals. The word nice once had many meanings that completely contradicted each other. Today’s Tech Term, dongle, is another word that has evolved, albeit at a faster pace.

As a business owner, we’re sure that you’ve spent some time around computers. You might have even seen the phrases “plain text” and “HTML,” used in regards to email. By understanding what both of these phrases mean, you can improve the way that you understand the technology that your business depends on. The primary difference between the two is simply how much information each of them carries.