Coleman Technologies Blog

Be Prepared to Lose Power
Electricity is perhaps the most important part of using technology in the workplace, as without it, the devices that empower your business’ operations just won’t function. In some cases, you might suddenly lose power, leading to data loss and other disaster scenarios that could strike your business down if you’re not prepared for them. With progress grinding to a halt, downtime will ensue, creating a considerable loss for your business.

Even if you’re not losing power, an excessive amount of it can create a surge, damaging the infrastructure itself and harming the individual components that make it up. It’s ultimately in your best interest to take measures against these events, as you made an investment that needs a substantial return. Surge protectors can be helpful to prevent excessive power from crippling these important machines, but in some cases, you’ll want a more powerful solution. An uninterruptible power supply, or UPS device, can help your servers, workstations, and other important technology shut down properly in the event of a power outage or surge, giving you the ability to minimize damage done.

Maintain a Steady Internet Connection
The Internet is an invaluable tool that can help your business succeed, and the Internet plays a larger role in its functionality than it ever has before. A lack of Internet ultimately becomes downtime for many organizations, as they depend on the Internet for various services and communications. More often than not, there’s nothing you can do about a lack of Internet if it comes from your service provider. To keep this kind of downtime from sinking operations, many businesses have implemented backup Internet connections, just in case they ever have to use it. This comes with a downside--you’ll have to maintain that connection--but it will likely be worth the investment if you ever need it.

Place Boundaries on Your Staff
Even the best employees are known to make mistakes from time-to-time. While you can trust them for the most part, nobody is perfect, nor should you expect them to be. Some might even try to implement their own solutions with the intention of making their jobs easier and more efficient. This is called shadow IT, and it can be dangerous. You have no way of knowing whether it’s putting your business at risk. You can implement measures to ensure that your employees aren’t downloading unauthorized applications through the use of administrator and user privileges. If you limit what your users can do with their machines, then you have less to worry about.

Coleman Technologies can help your business ensure managing IT doesn’t become a hassle. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

What’s the Problem?
What’s the first thing that anyone who prefers Google Chrome does when they open Microsoft Edge? Simple--they download Google Chrome. Since Chrome isn’t available by default on Windows 10 devices, users have to download it, which means that they are reliant on Bing’s search results to find Google Chrome. The problem with this is that some malware sites have disguised themselves as sponsored ads for Google Chrome in Bing’s search results.

These sponsored ads would appear when a user searches for Google Chrome in the Bing search engine. Basically, instead of a legitimate sponsored ad leading to the Google Chrome download page, the malicious ad would instead bring the user to a phishing site disguised to look like the Google Chrome download page. This page would have a URL of ‘googleonline2018.com.’ If you try to access this page through Google Chrome, it’s actually blocked, but Bing and Edge don’t do this, making it a huge security issue.

These Issues Aren’t the First
Making the situation even worse is that this isn’t the first time Bing has encountered issues like this. Even as far back as April of this year, this same threat was reportedly identical to the recent version. The ad has been pulled as of this writing, but it’s strange that no explanation has been issued regarding this threat by Google, or even a confirmation that the issue has been resolved. All of these factors combine to create a situation where it’s not that unbelievable a situation like this could happen again.

Other Bing Problems
There are other problems related to Bing that have caused issues in the past, including a history of providing offensive or alarming content through its image search. For example, if you were to search for objectively neutral terms, there is a chance that, even with SafeSearch on, the image search will deliver racist search suggestions or other similarly-offensive content. Bing has also been known to push conspiracy theories through its suggested searches. Searching for the wrong thing could potentially expose users to material that they didn’t want to view in the first place, or content that could land viewers in hot water with the law.

To remain updated on similar situations to those explained above, as well as the latest security breaches and threats, subscribe to Coleman Technologies’s blog.

The Types of Backup
Here are four of the most common types of backup that you can expect to see in an office environment:

• Full backup: This type of backup makes a copy of all selected files in their entirety. Most backup solutions will have to initially go through this process, and since this is such an intensive process, it will take longer than other data backup types. If this is your preferred method of backup, it will likely have to be done after-hours, as it takes a long time and could tie up processes that are needed during the workday.
• Differential backup: This type of backup only backs up changes made to the data. This allows for faster backups, but the process of recovery is much slower.
• Incremental backup: This type of backup is much like a differential backup, with the main difference being that an incremental backup will always back up the data regardless of if a full backup was completed or not.
• Mirror backup: A mirror backup makes a real-time duplicate of the source and backs it up. This creates complete redundancy, but it also comes with various issues. For example, if the material is deleted by mistake, the mirror will also be deleted. This reason alone dissuades IT technicians from using mirror backups as a viable solution for their backup needs.

Now that the types of data backup have been explained, we’ll go over some of the backup-related terms you might want to know.

• Business continuity: A business continuity plan is designed to help your business get back in proper functioning order if you’re ever hit by an unfortunate situation. All organizations need to have a business continuity plan in place.
• Disaster recovery: Disaster recovery is specifically there in the event your business suffers from a disaster involving data loss. This includes cyberattacks, sabotage, user error, and even weather-based disasters that destroy infrastructure.
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): RPO is a benchmark that represents which data will be recovered by your business if it wants to get back to normal business operations following a disaster.
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO): RTO is a benchmark that represents the time needed for your business’ data to be restored. Minimizing this number is critical to keep downtime as low as possible.

Coleman Technologies can help your business by equipping it with a comprehensive data backup and disaster recovery system. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

What Are Templates?
Evernote’s templates are handy, pre-built structures for notes that provide users with a simpler means of organizing specific types of information. Instead of taking time struggling with your formatting each time you start a new note, you can apply one of the templates that Evernote offers on their website. Those with a subscription to Evernote Plus, Premium, or Business can even use formatting they’ve created in past notes to generate their own templates for repeated use.

Applying Templates in Evernote
Once you’ve acquired a few templates, either from the Evernote website’s collection or from a past note, applying one of your choosing is relatively simple.

• In Evernote, start a new note.
• In the body of the note, click Templates to view the ones you have saved.
• From there, you can search for any templates you have, delete ones you no longer want or need, edit their names, and of course, apply them to notes.
• If you want to edit a template, follow the same process, and once you’ve made the changes that you want, save it as a new template. Note: only those with Plus, Premium, or Business accounts are able to do this.
• Plus, Premium, and Business users are also able to create their own templates this way.

So, what do you think? Is this a welcome change to Evernote? What other improvements would you like to see them make down the line? Let us know in the comments!

Generally speaking, microchips in computers are made out of a variety of materials, but the most common is silicon. These microchips are responsible for acting as semiconductors and give your devices the ability to perform various tasks. We’ll get into the details about a couple of them here.

Memory
One of the more notable uses of microchips in devices includes temporarily storing data. These kinds of chips have a familiar name that you’ve probably heard before--Random Access Memory, or RAM. As long as the chip is receiving power, it can store data on the device. Once the device is turned off and the chips are no longer receiving power, this temporary data is wiped. Depending on what the device is used for, the computer might have many RAM chips installed on it; otherwise, the device will be slowed down considerably by resource-intensive tasks.

Microprocessors
Microprocessors have a lot to do with your device’s CPU, or central processing unit. You’ll often hear the comparison of a CPU to the brain of the human body. The CPU is responsible for processing all of the programmable commands on the device. Microprocessors generally rely on logic to function as intended. Of course, depending on the kind of device, various strength microprocessors will need to be used, as the same kind of microprocessor won’t work for every single kind of device out there.

Other Kinds of Chips
Depending on the device used, you might find various device-specific chips in use. For example, some devices that have cameras might have chips specifically designed for use with video recording or picture taking. Others that have networking abilities might have chips designed for use with those. Basically, chips are responsible for both the everyday functionality of your devices, as well as some of the specific, more advanced features that not everyone will be using.

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