Where Did the Konami Code Come From? Back in 1986, the video game company Konami released a home version of the arcade game Gradius playable on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). However, in order to test the game out throughout its development for the NES, the entire game needed to be played through, each time. The developer responsible for the game, Kazuhisa Hashimoto, found this far more frustrating than it should have been. To fix this, Hashimoto created a cheat code to simplify his process that?by unlocking every power-up that would otherwise be granted throughout the game?made it much easier to move along to the point that needed to be tested. The thing is, the code was never removed as it should have been before its release, as its inclusion wasn?t caught until it was too far into production to remove it without creating additional glitches to deal with. Fortunately, the Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A-Select-Start combination wasn?t one that a user would be apt to put in unless they intended to. However, the code was quickly discovered, and since then has been purposefully included in numerous games. More to our point, it has also appeared elsewhere, firmly cementing itself into pop culture. Other Places the Konami Code Has Since Emerged In addition to Gradius, the Konami Code has appeared in dozens of other games. One particularly famous example is the use of the Konami Code in the game Contra, where the player would receive 30 extra lives. This is just one example of the many, many games that have incorporated the Konami Code into their gameplay in one way or another. In addition to these appearances, the Konami Code has been referenced in many pieces of popular culture outside of the video game world. Somewhat recently, it served as a major plot point in the movie Wreck-It Ralph, was encoded in the background of an episode of the animated spy series Archer, and has been recited in an episode of Family Guy. Of course, it has also been heavily utilized by various websites and services as an Easter egg of sorts. Reciting it to the Google Assistant or Amazon?s Alexa will trigger one of a few responses from the assistants, and entering it into an Error 404 page on Discord will start a game of snake. So, if you ever come across the combination Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A-Select-Start, now you know what it is and where it came from. Have you ever stumbled across the Konami Code before? Share it with us in the comments, and make sure you subscribe to our blog.

Set Public Goals Daily One way to ensure that your employees are doing the things you need them to do is to ensure that you set daily goals and benchmarks. One great way to accomplish this is to have a small meeting at the beginning of the day to outline what is expected and what each person will do to accomplish organizational goals.  Make Sure there Are Actual Priorities For many businesses, it?s hard to determine what the priorities are because business moves fast and everything needs to get done. A good strategy, however, is to have management set the priorities and keep them as best as possible. One good tip is to set something simple as the top priority of the day so that it gets accomplished and gets your staff feeling good about their work. Starting off the day with a victory is a good step toward continuing positive momentum throughout the workday.  Allow for Focus As we mentioned earlier, sometimes priorities have to change. This may be inevitable, but the more you can avoid shifting priorities the more you can keep people from losing focus on meaningful tasks. The more you force people to jump back and forth between tasks, the more the attention-to-detail that you depend on gets swept under the rug. Allowing your staff time to focus on tasks is one of the most important aspects of keeping a productive and efficient business humming along.  Have a Plan for Tomorrow Taking some time to assess where projects are at the end of the workday can go a long way toward being able to prioritize the next day?s work. That way, you aren?t rushing around to figure out what needs to be done the day the work needs to go out. Productivity relies on forward momentum and the more you have planned out beforehand, the more your staff can focus on getting work completed, a massive benefit for your bottom line. What productivity tips can you provide that will help other organizations get the best foot forward and be the best business they can be? Follow us on social media or give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to engage with our staff. 

Listen Too Much to One Party, And Not Enough to the Others Look, we get it? the boss is the boss, and the big decisions will therefore fall on their shoulders. Having said that, IT decisions should not be the purview of the CEO, president, or other authority alone. Big implementations or newly introduced solutions should not be incorporated based on the desire of just those in leadership positions. These things should always be motivated by progress?basically, how much benefit can you see from making a considered change? If you?re looking for some insight, you should turn to the opposite side of your business: your employees. They are the ones with hands-on experience with your technology, after all. The input of the end-user is not to be underestimated, so make sure you take what they have to say into consideration. Postponing Essential Reviews Nothing lasts forever, including the technology that your business operations rely on, the protections that keep your data safe, or the relationships you maintain with your customers. As a result, it is recommended that each of these undergo regular reviews to ensure that all is as it should be. Doing so will help you to maintain your business? functionality by preventing downtime and defending your data, while encouraging operations by helping you keep track of your most promising customers. Therefore, it should be clear that these reviews should be prioritized so that your business isn?t inadvertently hobbling itself. Failure to Future-Proof It is important that a business doesn?t simply wait for its current technology to become outdated before a plan is made to update or replace it. Acknowledging that technology will eventually need to be cycled out and scheduling regular maintenance until that point will allow a business to be better prepared for such a time. On a related note, business leadership should always be keeping an eye on trends in IT, seeking out the input to guide them to the best possible option moving forward. White Mountain IT Services can help you address all of these concerns, and more. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to find out what we can do for you.

Here are three tips that you can keep in the back of your mind for the next time you think you need to replace your technology. Considerable Slowdown Over time, your device might experience a bit of slowdown. This is to be expected, especially as more powerful devices are released and you constantly have to compare your own device experiences with those of your coworkers. There isn?t much you can do about device slowdown over an extended period of time, so if it starts to get a little too much to handle and it is harder to keep up with your daily tasks, then perhaps it?s time to consider an upgrade. Negatively Impacting Productivity Your device is going to experience some wear and tear over time, but when it starts to impact your ability to be productive in the workplace, you know it?s time to start thinking about an update. If your computer starts to crash periodically throughout the workday, or you are constantly dealing with other issues that keep you from doing your job the way you?re supposed to, start considering your path to a device update or upgrade. Incompatibility with Application Upgrades or Security Patches This is the most obvious sign that it?s time to upgrade your device. If your devices are no longer supported by patches and security updates, continued use of this device could lead to security breaches or sensitive data being stolen from your device. You can bet that hackers will take any opportunity they can get to spread viruses, malware, or other threats to your device, so you need to use this opportunity to crush their dreams by updating your device or upgrading to a new model.  Of course, there is also the possibility that the device simply needs some repairs or regularly scheduled maintenance to get back into tip-top shape. This is especially the case for desktop workstations, as there are many components that go into making them tick. For example, a slow computer might just need an extra stick of memory to keep up with your daily tasks. This obviously is better than replacing the entire machine, so it is important to understand the full details and status of the device before making a decision. We urge you to speak to a professional before committing to a full-blown replacement or upgrade of your device, whatever it happens to be. White Mountain IT Services can help your business upgrade devices or acquire new ones as needed, no matter where you are in the process. Whether you need to discard older devices, properly wipe the data on them, or start from scratch with acquisition, we?ve got your back during this difficult process. Get started with this process by reaching out to us at (603) 889-0800!

Business Owners  Prior to the pandemic, it was relatively rare to see a business that embraced remote working en masse. Sure, some positions were outsourced, and on the rare occasion where it was necessary, they would allow an employee to work remotely. All in all, many businesses viewed the practice as taboo. This wasn?t just because business owners would seemingly lose control over their employees, as many have posited, it was just that in this day and age, it is hard to build a company identity, with positive company culture, if you never see the other people. Looking back at it now, it was a combination of a little too much fear due to the uncertainty behind it all. As COVID-19 made it necessary for businesses to move their workforces out of their brick and mortar locations, it became pretty clear that much of the fear of remote work was misplaced. Even today, where a large portion of information workers remain out of the office, there are problems with remote work. The most pressing include: Lack of face-to-face collaboration Individual dips in productivity Lease on brick and mortar location Depleting company culture These concerns persist and businesses are trying to establish plans to get their workers back into the office as much as possible. Workers, however, have a different view. Employees Every organization has employees that are simply better off coming to the office every day, but the vast majority of newly remote workers are now balking at going back to the office full time. It?s their position that there are just too many benefits of working from home, and since it is evident that they can do their jobs from their home (or wherever they do their jobs from) that returning to the office is just an arbitrary move by business owners to take back control over their businesses. This issue, while not as pressing presently with variants of the COVID-19 virus still causing problems, isn?t going to go away; and, it figures to change the dynamics of employment for information workers going forward. Workers like the flexibility of working from home. Even if they work an hourly job at designated periods of the day, the lack of travel (and pants) give workers more control over their lives. Of course, there are some workers who aren?t cut out for the responsibilities of working from home, but the lion?s share of workers are adamant that they don?t want to go back to the office full time. This is where you see the conflict. Workers that don?t want to go back to the office, plenty of remote-only jobs available, and experience working from home creates a situation where business owners cannot just demand they go back to an office. Turnover is extraordinarily expensive.  Many businesses have considered going to a hybrid strategy where people work in an office in a rotation to get the most out of their time in the office. This is a compromise, and many businesses are in the process of setting up metrics that can measure a person?s ability to work from home and their contribution inside the office. Over time, this is probably the work strategy many businesses are going to go to. Employees in the office for meetings and collaborative tasks and out of the […]