With that, we’d like to introduce you to VoIP.
VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a telephone system that uses your business’ Internet connection to fuel its telephone system. Rather than paying the antiquated telephone company an arm and a leg, you can now use your existing Internet connection to host a dynamic and reliable telephone platform. There are different tiers of VoIP, but today’s most cost effective, and popular, is a VoIP platform that is hosted in the cloud.
As many business owners are aware, their ability to communicate is critical to their business' success. They are also mindful that the current business environment has made it more challenging to communicate effectively as they did pre-coronavirus. As face-to-face and word of mouth communication have been significantly reduced, business communication has been transferred to the cloud, particularly when it comes to sharing information.
Efficiency is far from the only benefit that comes from using electronic record storage or document management platforms. Without the prohibitive costs associated with printing paper copies of your records, you’ll be able to do more while still having access to all your business’ important documents. Let’s consider how much money can be saved when you aren’t printing every document you want to file away.
The fact is that a direct connection is inherently more secure than one that is broadcast over the airwaves, as these have the potential to be snagged in transit much more easily. Therefore, if security is paramount, a wired connection is the better option by default. That said, there are ways to secure your wireless connection, utilizing a VPN.
Imagine for a second the surprise you would have if you tried to log into your computer and you were presented with a message telling you that your files have been encrypted and that you need to pay in Bitcoin before the clock runs out or you will lose those files forever. Then you noticed the clock clicking down. Would you panic? You probably would. That is ransomware, a particularly ugly malware that could cost you everything.
Mobility is becoming a critical component for small and medium-sized businesses largely due to the demand brought by employees. Today, where most tasks can be completed with the use of a smartphone, it creates the kind of scenario that gets employees asking, “Why not?”
Business owners are always searching for value. This is no different when it comes to technology support. The question is how to get the best support for your business’ technology for the least amount of money, right? After all, considering the amount of problems a business could have, its technology support bill shouldn’t be the one that hamstrings the whole business. This month we will look at the three types of IT support available to most businesses and tell you why managed IT services are by far the most valuable.
Farms often cover miles and miles of real estate. Traditionally, this makes it more difficult to keep track of everything that is going on around the property. Drones can make monitoring the status of the farm much simpler. With specialized sensors that collect important data, farmers are able to successfully manage irrigation levels, fertilization, and crop spacing, leading to higher agriculture output. Using drones, farmers can also manage livestock much simpler.
Hosted VoIP is easily described as a communications platform that utilizes an Internet connection to function. Unlike traditional telephone systems that are purchased through the telephone company and have their own dedicated lines, hosted VoIP is hosted in the cloud and allows a business to build a strong, customized telephone system that meets a lot of a company’s communications needs.
Let’s go over how to set up this capability. As a disclaimer, it will require you to edit some of your menu options, so reach out to your IT resource to confirm that it is okay to do so and to assist you if need be.
You should also know that Track Changes won’t work if a spreadsheet contains a table that hasn’t been converted into a range. To make this conversion, select the table, navigate to the Design tab, and click the Convert to Range option. If you want others to be able to collaborate on your workbook, it needs to be saved in a shared location.
Let’s discuss what this signifies, and how this may shape how users authenticate themselves in the future.
Short for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, CAPTCHA has long been the standard tool used by Google to prevent automated spam from polluting the Internet by requiring (in theory) a human being to interact with content in some way before allowing access or a task to successfully be completed.
You’ve got better things to do than organizing and prioritizing your emails manually. Granted, you’ll still need to respond to important emails, but most email clients have everything you need to set up a system that automatically parses and sorts emails based on a whole slew of different factors. It will take a little time, and likely a few rounds of adjustments to get your inbox to work the way you want it to, but we’re going to show you the tools that will help get you there.
Downloadable from the Google Play Store, Google Lens is a utility app that incorporates artificial intelligence to make your smartphone’s capability to take and store images even more useful. With Google Lens, your phone can identify the elements in an image and give the user in-depth and contextual options based on it. Let’s say you wanted to find out what the flowers were that someone had planted outside their house. Using Google Lens, you could point your camera at the flowers and identify them that way.
Let’s just come out and say it: as terrible as the pandemic has been for so many, it has also given businesses some very strong motivations to adapt and innovate. Really, most had no choice if they wanted to remain open in the long-term.
This led to many businesses finally adopting the modern solutions that enabled productive and secure remote work and collaboration.
By knowing the value of the data you hold, you will be able to properly prioritize how to protect it. Since IT experts have to create cybersecurity strategies based on how much harm can be done to your operational integrity and reputation, it’s good practice to know what assets hackers would be after if they were to breach your network defenses.
When working from home, the reasonable threshold for mobile device use is significantly different. Theoretically, you could talk to someone on speakerphone with the phone across the room (although you shouldn’t). However, there are other people with you in the office that you could potentially distract.
Buying workstations isn’t like buying a new computer for yourself. First of all, it doesn’t have the same amount of joy attached, unless you get a really good deal on bulk machines. It still can be a good time, however. Let’s take a look at some of the basic considerations that you need to weigh when buying workstations for your company.
It’s true that there are a lot of businesses that rely on their workforce to show up every day. Many of these businesses were forced to shut down or operate at limited capacity during the pandemic but are just now getting up to speed. Outside of operations, there are a lot of administrative uses of technology, some of which involve protecting employee and customer information. Let’s get into some of the strategies that businesses can use to get the most out of their workforce at this time.
We’ll start with healthcare, as it is the most prevalent. Healthcare data is protected, and that protection is regulated, and all for good reason. This information is the most personal information an individual has and it has no business being in possession of anyone but the provider, the insurer, and the patient. The most well-known regulation for healthcare in the United States is called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). It was developed to keep personal health data and personally identifiable information (PII) secure. This was necessary as there have been new systems implemented to transfer health and insurance information between healthcare providers and insurers.
Let’s go over what this means, how you can go about doing so to your business’ benefit.
When you sign on for Internet services from your service provider, you’re effectively subscribing to a preset amount of bandwidth—hopefully, enough for your staff to do everything they need to do. However, once some people start a few resource-intensive tasks, they could potentially pull network resources away from your other users… not the ideal situation.
Coleman Technologies has been serving the British Columbia area since 1999, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses. Our experience has allowed us to build and develop the infrastructure needed to keep our prices affordable and our clients up and running.
20178 96 Avenue, C400
Langley, British Columbia V1M 0B2
Mon to Fri 9:00am to 6:00pm
