First, it may be helpful to briefly review what VoIP is, exactly. Understanding Voice over Internet Protocol Originally, the telephone worked by taking the sound of a voice and converting it into electronic waves, which were then sent to the recipient and converted back into sound. Nowadays, digital phone systems translate sound information into packets of binary data that are transmitted to the person on the other end of the line across the Internet. How Does VoIP Ultimately Save My Business Money? There are quite a few ways that the cost savings that are so often touted with VoIP can be accomplished. You?re Paying for One Less Thing On a very basic level, VoIP can save your business money by eliminating one of the utilities that you?d otherwise pay for: your telephone service bill. Since VoIP uses the Internet to transmit data, all you need to pay for is your business? Internet connection. While this does present the possibility of communication issues should you lose Internet service, the cost savings over time can make this issue less worrisome nevertheless. VoIP is Easier Because VoIP is delivered via the Internet, your employees no longer need any additional infrastructure to enable them to make calls – which makes the process of adding (or, if the need should arise, removing) phones much less intensive. After all, you will no longer potentially need to redesign the office to accommodate your infrastructure, eliminating the costly construction that this could bring about. This all contributes to a decreased investment necessary to leverage VoIP to your advantage. VoIP is More Efficient Depending on your industry, you may field repeated calls from clients and customers coming in for assistance and other assorted requests, often addressing similar topics. Some VoIP solutions enable you to provide them with an auto attendant recording that walks them through the process that is troubling them. As a result, they are satisfied, while your employees won?t need to deal with interruptions throughout the day that could be avoided, allowing them to be more productive during the time you pay them to be there. Are there other benefits to VoIP solutions? Of course… there?s the enhanced mobility it offers, the customization we only briefly touched on, and many other considerations that make it a great option for businesses. However, the cost savings can?t be denied. To learn more about implementing VoIP into your business? technology, reach out to White Mountain IT Services at (603) 889-0800!
Reason Number 1: You Won’t Have to Worry About Hiring Employees and Creating an In-house IT Department The hiring process can be a long and drawn-out process that may momentarily disrupt everyday business operations. Human Resources may also experience difficulty locating qualified employees in the IT field for certain positions, especially if your main office is not located in a large metropolitan area. That’s why many companies prefer to hire a Managed Service Provider. They can function as an extended IT team without the large absorbent salaries of an in-house IT department. Reason Number 2: You Will Gain Access to A Large Team of Highly Trained and Experienced IT Staff Are you tired of using online search engines to look up the solution to every technical issue you come across? Managed Service Providers are staffed with highly trained and experienced staff members who can answer your questions at any time. Their customer support team can also resolve problems and provide additional resources that can help your business succeed in the future. Reason Number 3: A Managed Service Provider Will Give You The Opportunity to Focus on Your Core Business Again The best part about working with a Managed Service Provider is that it will give your company’s decision-makers and employees the opportunity to focus on its core business. Outsourcing time-consuming activities like IT will free up everyone’s schedule so they can work on more important tasks and priorities instead of problem-solving tech issues. Reason Number 4: A Managed Service Provider Will Help Your Company Become More Efficient Extremely efficient companies are more likely to be profitable and get an edge on the competition. Businesses that decide to offload their IT needs to an outside Managed Service Provider can use them as leverage to improve their overall efficiency. The provider can act as an extension of your team, which can allow you to save valuable time and money. Reason Number 5: A Managed Service Provider is Available Around the Clock with 24/7 Service Murphy’s Law states that if something can go wrong it will go wrong. With that in mind, it’s not uncommon for IT problems to occur after hours in the middle of the night or during a busy time of day. A Managed Service Provider can offer 24-hour technical support every day of the year, including nights and weekends. In conclusion The right Managed Service Provider can allow your business to save money, become more efficient and focus on your core business. They can also give you peace of mind since you can be confident that their skilled and knowledgeable IT staff will handle your company’s technical issues at all hours of the day. Learn More About Our Managed Services Please give us a call today at 603-889-0800 today or contact us online to learn more about why you should use White Mountain IT as your company’s Managed Service Provider. One of our team members can give you a customized quote based on your specific IT needs.
Valuable or not, you don?t want to lose any of your business? data. That?s why White Mountain IT Services is here to help, with solutions that provide comprehensive backup and disaster recovery. Keeping a backup in this way can help keep you from becoming a victim of data loss, regardless of the severity of the data loss event. For instance: Accidental Deletion You shouldn?t underestimate the potential impact that mistakenly deleting some critical data can have on your business. Fortunately, this impact can be deftly sidestepped so long as a backup solution is put in place. If your company is following good backup practices, you should have at least one copy of the deleted file in a backup, allowing you to restore it with little issue. Data Corruption and Theft Along a similar vein, a backup can be your saving grace if your data is stolen or targeted by a cyberthreat. This is especially the case when ransomware is involved, and your data has been encrypted. Rather than paying the ransom in the hopes of receiving the decryption key, or starting from scratch, a quick restoration from a backup can put you back in business (once the system has been wiped of the ransomware, of course). This process is much easier when you have a business continuity plan to fall back on. This strategy recommends that you keep multiple copies of your backup, one isolated offsite for major repairs and more efficient migrations, and one on-premise for less severe loss incidents and quick fixes. A Bonafide Disaster Event Unfortunately, it can be hard to predict exactly what kind of disasters you need to protect your data from. While some are certainly more likely than others, even the least likely disasters need to be anticipated and prepared for. Fortunately, one of the most critical parts of preparing your business for any of these disasters is to have a backup ready and waiting. Ideally, you?ll never need to use it – especially for this reason – but you?ll be glad to have it if you do. Many business owners don?t consider the possibility of any of these disasters before they happen, which leaves their company vulnerable. Don?t be one of these business owners. Working with White Mountain IT Services will help you better prepare for disasters big and small, so you?ll be more able to weather through them and resume your operations. To learn more about business continuity planning and a BDR solution, give us a call at (603) 889-0800.
We said this in a previous blog post, but Facebook is huge. Almost a quarter of the world population is considered active on the platform. It has changed the way people communicate, and for better or worse it has become a major part of the lives of so many people. I?d be willing to wager that most readers of our blog understand that, for the most part, if you want to control your privacy online, you need to limit what you put online. At least, that?s a big part of privacy. Unfortunately, with mobile devices, location sharing, and machine learning, services are able to collect a lot of information that you aren?t directly giving it voluntarily. Let?s Recap – Should I Just Quit Facebook? We?re going to leave that ultimate decision up to you, but regardless of how you feel about social media and Facebook in general, there are plenty of pros and cons to being an active Facebook user. What are the pros? There?s the obvious stuff – Facebook is a great platform to communicate with friends, colleagues, and family. Facebook Messenger is a pretty feature-rich instant messenger with group chat capabilities. Many businesses and organizations use Facebook as one of their main platforms to communicate with clients and customers, either through Facebook pages or Facebook groups. Plus, businesses can run fairly cost-effective targeted advertisements through Facebook with better accuracy than most other ad platforms. The downsides? Privacy. All of the information we punch into Facebook goes to Facebook. It helps Facebook learn about us. Facebook watches how you interact with posts and what you scroll through. After hours and hours of this, year after year, like after like, Facebook really starts to figure out who you are, maybe even more than you think you are letting on. It uses this information to help target ads and curate the posts you see in your timeline. As we?ve seen historically, Facebook has also done some pretty shady things with our personal data. Without going too deep into any particular topic, here are a few quick examples to refresh your memory: Back in 2007, Facebook had a feature where companies could track purchases by Facebook users and notify their friends of what had been bought, often without consent. In 2011, Facebook was charged by the FTC for allowing private information to be made public without warning. Facebook was essentially letting third-parties access user information without consent. In 2013, Facebook had a bug that exposed the email addresses and phone numbers of 6 million Facebook users. In 2014, Facebook ran an experiment to see if they could make users depressed by delivering depressing content. It turned out that yes, they can. In 2015, Facebook decided that Facebook apps shouldn?t have access to all the private user data that they want, meaning it was pretty much a free-for-all until then. This leads up to the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal. In 2018, it was revealed that Facebook had a massive 50 million user data breach, knew about it, but did nothing until it started to make them look bad. The last few years have been busy for Facebook, and we?re only focusing on privacy-related issues, and not even touching on other, more volatile topics of discussion that the social network has gotten wrapped up […]
First, let?s log in to Facebook on a computer to manage the bulk of the security settings. Making Sense of Facebook?s Security and Privacy Options Log in to Facebook.com and click the little down arrow on the top right. Then click Settings. If you ever get lost during this guide, you can get back to where you need to be by coming back to this point. We?re going to spend quite a bit of time here. Let?s start with a little general housekeeping. Verify the General Account Settings are Correct Make sure you own and control all of the email accounts tied to your Facebook account. This is just good practice for all of your online accounts – every ecommerce site, every social network, every service you sign up for – if any account is tied to an older email address that you don?t check anymore or don?t have access to, you?ll have a hard time getting back into the account if something were to happen. Security and Login – Find Out Where You?ve Logged into Facebook Click Security and Login on the right. First, Facebook will show you all of the recent devices logged into your account. It will show you approximately where geographically the device was, the browser used, and when it was last active. Obviously, if you see something suspicious here, you should change your password right away (the options for that are directly below). Additionally, you can click the 3-dot icon on the right next to any login and log that device out. If It?s Been a While, Take a Moment to Change Your Password While we?re here, it wouldn?t hurt to create a new Facebook password. You should consider doing this across all of your accounts regularly (at least every 6-to-12 months, but more often for critical accounts like your bank and email). Just as a reminder, you can get there by clicking on the down arrow on the top right of Facebook, going to Settings, and clicking Security and Login. Make sure to never use the same password for two different accounts online. Enable Two-Factor Authentication Directly below the password options are settings for two-factor authentication (2fa). This adds additional security to your account in case your password gets stolen. Select Use two-factor authentication and click edit. Facebook will take you to a page that walks you through setting it up. From there, click Get Started. You will be given two Security Methods. We recommend understanding both options before choosing one: Option 1 – Authentication App – This lets you use a third-party authentication app like Google Authenticator or Duo Mobile to generate the login code. This is a little bit more secure, but it does require you to have access to the mobile device that the authenticator app is installed on. To set this up, open the Google Authenticator or Duo Authenticator or LastPass Authenticator on your mobile device. It makes the most sense to use the authenticator app that you use for other accounts, but if you don?t have one, and you have a Google account, use Google Authenticator. Then, from Facebook on your computer (see the above screenshot), select Authentication App and click Next. Facebook will give you a square barcode called a QR code to scan. In your Authenticator App, […]
