Server-Based LAN Let?s say you are a small business that is in the market for its first server. Up until now your LAN was just made up of what we in the IT services industry call workstations. No matter how powerful a PC is on a LAN, if it?s set up as an end-point, it?s a workstation. A server, on the other hand, is in the center of the LAN. Each workstation can access the server to get the resources on the server, whether they be communications, data storage, or access to applications. This allows for better collaboration, more efficient computing, and the improved ability to secure digital resources. What?s more, a server can be set up to allow for remote access, meaning that your employees will have the ability to have their work with them anywhere they are. You may be surprised just how much value this feature can have for your business. If everyone on your staff produces five percent more, that?s more available capital to invest in your business. In fact, if you don?t currently have a server, deploying one just for file sharing will provide a rapid and substantial ROI.  Server Options  There are several server options that come with varying degrees of capital outlay. Firstly, you will need to establish what exactly you need the server for. Are you implementing a company-wide email system? Do you need central file sharing and storage? Would you like to implement a Customer Relationship Management (CRM)? Whatever purpose you plan on rolling out a server for you need to understand that buying, setting up, running, and managing a server at your business comes with additional costs. In fact, you won?t find an inexpensive part of running your own server, but with the prolonged boost in productivity it should pay for itself pretty rapidly.  An option that businesses have if they are unsure that their major capital outlay will produce enough profitability is to deploy a cloud server. Solutions from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Rackspace all are decent and reliable options if you were to go this route. The benefit of hosting a server in the cloud is that you don?t have to make huge capital investments on hardware, management, utilities and security. These are provided as a part of a service. These companies offer virtual servers that provide generally the same purpose, but billed per month. Essentially, this method transfers the capital costs associated with buying and running a server into operational costs.  Cloud-hosted servers are more reliable than ever, but they don?t give your business the end-to-end control over data and resources that hosting your own servers can. Moreover, if for some reason your business was to lose connection to the Internet, you wouldn?t have access. This downtime can cripple even a rapidly-growing business? progress. Not to mention the reliance you then have on your level of bandwidth, another cost consideration that may make hosting your own server a little more attractive.  Regardless of how you decide to roll out your company?s first server, it is an exciting time for your business. Call the White Mountain IT Services IT professionals if you have any questions regarding your organization?s information systems or IT management. You can reach us at (603) 889-0800. 

RAM-Saving Apps If an application is running in the background of your Android device, it is going to help burn through your battery and use up your RAM, impacting the device?s performance. This is even the case when the app is only in standby mode. There are many apps currently on app stores that purport to eliminate these claims by shutting down these background processes. Unfortunately, these apps often have the opposite effect, ultimately making the problems they are meant to solve, worse. Cleaning Applications Your applications will often cache data into your phone to help their performance, and theoretically, this can eventually impact your device?s performance overall. Similarly to the RAM issue, many phone applications are committed to clearing this cached data to help boost the performance of the device ? especially useful if the offending app has since been deleted. Admittedly, this makes sense, and actually is true in some cases. However, cleaning apps (which aren?t even necessary to use) drain your battery and can expose you to malicious mobile advertising. Rather than relying on a potentially problematic app, just go into your Settings, navigate into either Storage > Cached data > Clear cached data or Apps > Downloaded > selecting an app > Clear Cache, and you?re all set. Battery Savers Any mobile user understands the frustration of battery limitations, so the idea that an app can help your battery last longer is a truly appealing one. Unfortunately, these apps can?t deliver on their promises, for a few fatal reasons. First, the kind of control that this would require would demand some control over Android, which means these apps would need root privileges. Second, if a power-saver ?closes? an app that is draining power, chances are good that the app will just reopen, ultimately using up more of your precious battery. Fortunately, Google is getting better at this as well, with Android?s Adaptive Battery limiting the drain of less-used applications. Flashlight Apps Your phone already has a flashlight built in. Why download an app that is only going to invade your privacy through flagrantly excessive permission requirements? Skip these. Free Antivirus Yes, antivirus is important, but it is also important to remember that you get what you pay for. In this case, paying nothing will get you nothing. Android has you covered. Have you noticed a pattern of Android already attending to its users? needs yet? If you really, really want to be sure, however, spend the few dollars and pick a reputable, paid antivirus option. Facebook We would be amiss if we didn?t mention the world?s largest social network. After the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, it became clear that there are clear security issues to be considered. Using the app only makes matters worse: high memory use, background activity, invasive permissions, and voracious data consumption have turned the app from a luxury into a burden. If you still want to use Facebook while mobile, it is a much better idea to delete the app and instead access it through your mobile browser. From there, you can create a direct shortcut to it on your home screen. As a result, closing the Facebook web tab prevents it from chewing through your data and battery life. If you decide to continue to use the Facebook app, it?s worth […]

“Ask any tech-savvy business owner whether they can run their business from their mobile phone, and you’ll likely get ‘yes’ for an answer. Expect that chorus to grow louder as more advance[d] business-friendly mobile apps hit the marketplace.” The article shares relevant data from ComScore to show the increasing use of mobile devices: “…mobile digital app use has grown by roughly 50 percent in the past two years, with more than 75 percent of that growth ‘directly attributable’ to the mobile app. ‘Mobile has grown so fast that it’s now the leading digital platform, with total activity on smartphones and tablets accounting for 62 percent of digital media time spent, and apps alone now representing the majority of digital media time at 54 percent,’ ComScore adds.” While going exclusively mobile isn’t the norm, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or issuing company mobile devices for workers is the norm for the majority of modern businesses. This is validated by an article found on TechRepublic called: “80% of IT business leaders believe employees need mobile devices to do their jobs”, written on June 20th, 2018 by Mark Kaelin, as he explains: “…80% of the respondents believe their employees can’t do their jobs effectively without a smartphone. In fact, 75% said their mobile devices are essential to their company’s business workflows. The successful modern enterprise workforce is a mobile workforce. …However, while mobile devices offer more convenience and flexibility for the modern workforce, they also bring with them additional risks and support issues.” Security Concerns with Mobile Devices at Work As mobile devices become ubiquitous within work environments, mobile IT security policies must be created and implemented to ensure cybersecurity, especially, for BYOD work environments. Essentially, employees’ mobile devices used at work must be encrypted and have strong authentication protocols. An article found on Mobile Business Insights called: “The importance of data encryption on employee mobile devices”, written on July 5th, 2018 by Rose de Fremery, explains more: “Once accessed, unencrypted mobile device data can quickly yield a treasure trove of sensitive financial, business or personal information that should be kept from prying eyes. …Mobile devices should be protected with long alphanumeric passcodes. Enterprises whose BYOD participants access particularly sensitive data might want to implement biometric authentication methods as well.” Developing Mobile Security Policies With mobile devices becoming more advanced and useful for work environments, businesses will need to consider developing mobile IT security policies that fit their unique situation. The security variables involved include: private vs. public cloud systems on-premises vs. cloud enterprise systems mobile devices vs. desktop/laptop systems industry’s level of customer data sensitivity BYOD or company-issued Hybrid work environments with a mixture of all of these variables are the most common, as cloud and mobile computing technology, increasingly, becomes integrated within modern enterprises. Whatever the variables may be, mobile IT security policies should comprehensively address and remedy the security risks that mobile devices create. As the Mobile Business Insights article surmises: “By taking prudent security measures now and educating employees on the importance of protecting their personal devices from unauthorized access, enterprises can maximize the benefits of a robust BYOD program while minimizing their risks.”   White Mountain IT Services has witnessed the rise of mobile technology in the workplace since our beginnings in 1985; our comprehensive managed IT services […]

The Beginning At the beginning of the mobile device there was war. The invention of radio early in the 20th century was the first noteworthy moment. Guglielmo Marconi and Nikola Tesla had a spirited competition to see who could bring radio to market, with Marconi ultimately winning out, he was honored with the Nobel Prize in 1909. This technology was immediately picked up by militaries from all ends of the planet, and was used in the late stages of WWI, the Russian Revolution (and the subsequent October Revolution), and the Spanish Civil War.   Over the next half century, the radio, while still used for war, became commonplace throughout the world. The radio was the first wireless consumer device, and they could be found in tens-of-millions of homes worldwide. In fact, in the United States alone, 95 percent of homes had a radio on VJ Day, the end of World War II. At that time, there were over a thousand radio stations in the United States alone.  As radio became the predominant way people got the news of the day, listened to the ballgame, and were entertained, radios got smaller. They could fit in the car, and then not too long after that, they could fit in a person?s hand. The development of the portable radio was the first time people understood the convenience of having portable technology. The worldwide reliance on the medium was absolute, until the establishment of the television in the 1950s.  Early Wireless Devices It wasn?t until the late 1970s until the modern mobile device began to become a possibility. With technology advancing on many fronts, manufacturers began to see the utility of having mobile telephone and computer options. This led to several manufacturers trying to find the technology that would allow them to communicate in places that simply weren?t possible.  The first set of wireless phones were added to luxury cars and train cars and other places where affluent people could take advantage of the technology. The first cellular phones–phones that today carry the 0G designation–started being developed as early as 1974.  Personal computers were just becoming a trend at this point. It would take almost 40 years before the trajectory of the two markets would intercept. In the early 1980s, something changed. Cellular technology began to improve, as did the form factors of mobile devices. In 1984, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X Advanced Mobile Phones System was introduced. The phone, which weighed in at a whopping 28 ounces, cost $4,000, and took 10 hours to charge for 30 minutes of talk time. Irregardless, it flew off the shelf. It sold around 1,200 phones in 1984 alone; and, based on that success, innovation was swift. If the mid ?80s were good for the cell phone, things were great for the PC market. From the mid-70s to 1980 there were an estimated one million PCs in the U.S. By the mid-80s, 10s of millions of personal computers had been sold. It took till 1981 for manufacturers to develop anything resembling what we would call a mobile PC. The Osborne 1 was the first mobile PC, but it was about the size of a suitcase. The Epson HX-20, a PC that had a four-line display and used a microcassette to store data, would forever be known as the very […]

What Exactly is Blockchain? Blockchain is an encrypted and distributed ledger system that creates an individual and uneditable record to provide continuity to any type of transaction. The blockchain is not only stored on every device involved in a transaction, it also provides transparency that isn?t possible with any other type of secure transaction. Let?s take a look at the ways blockchain can improve the systems your business depends on. Accountability As stated above, the blockchain creates a permanent record for each and every transaction. This means that every transaction–whether it is correcting a mistake made, or it is a stand-alone transaction–is documented and encrypted. As a result, applications on a chain will offer a genuine log of transaction nodes. This tech can be used in the following ways: Banking and Financial Services Banks and other financial institutions will absolutely benefit from the automated record-keeping nature of the blockchain, ensuring that funds make their way where they are supposed to go. Voting Voting has come under more scrutiny than ever. Blockchain can present an innovative tool in which to maintain the integrity of any election. Real Estate It?s amazing that real estate ownership has the amount of confusion that it does, but by putting blockchain in the center of real estate transactions, the real estate buying and selling process can be much more transparent. Wills and Inheritances Wills and inheritances often come under question. This unfortunate situation can be quickly mitigated by transparent blockchain transaction logs.  Supply Chain Management and Logistics Managing your business? supply chain and logistics can be aided by blockchain technology. With each transaction now having its own dedicated tracking information, the log can be used to manage the flow of resources and finished products, alike. Secure Shareability More digital communications are sent and received daily than ever before. With everyone?s reliance on this technology, finding the most secure and reliable ways to share data is an absolute priority. The blockchain could be used this way, logging all the relevant information you?d need without disclosing the contents of the blockchain nodes. The technology can also be used to ensure that agreements are fulfilled and that proper compensation is fairly provided. These capabilities could soon be found in: Healthcare Like most innovative and emerging technologies, healthcare is at the forefront of developing working options. Blockchain implementation could lead to a situation where individuals could manage his/her own health care records.  Stock Trading Blockchain could be used to log financial information that will assist stock exchanges from potentially building convenience while improving security. Education With blockchain, verification is a snap. Eliminating many of the paper files needed will make registration, financial aid, and management more efficient.  Internet of Things By decentralizing IoT devices, security can be improved exponentially.  Public Records Many states are actively launching initiatives to reduce their reliance on paper documents, which would help to minimize fraud and improve security (while also boosting accountability among officials). If you are interested in finding out more about blockchain, and the types of software currently being developed, reach out to our IT professionals at (603) 889-0800 today.