Depending on your situation, you might have an internal IT department that focuses on daily operations, or one that focuses solely on innovation, leaving your users to handle the various daily maintenance and upgrades your network needs. While this is better than no IT department at all, you run the risk of user error that could potentially leave your infrastructure unguarded; or worse, breached and compromised by hackers. This is the primary reason you want your IT department to be in complete and total contact with the rest of your business?s departments. It smooths operations and makes troubleshooting issues much easier than if you?re relying on those who aren?t trained professionals. Plus, ensuring that your IT department is in contact with the rest of your team allows for them to communicate network troubles, server issues, email complications, and more. This helps to make sure that everyone is on the same page, and thus, understands that situations are under control and being addressed. For example, one of your users isn?t skilled at working with technology. They might experience simple issues, like being unable to access the network or having difficulty working within your chosen email solution. Instead of bothering your internal IT department, which should be primarily focused on implementing new time-saving solutions, they can contact White Mountain IT Services?s Help Desk. When you work with White Mountain IT Services?s experienced, helpful IT staff, you get the quality of work you expect from an internal IT department at a fraction of the cost. Not only are our technicians more than capable of solving average, day-to-day issues, they?re also skillful and knowledgeable enough to diagnose and treat more serious problems with your IT infrastructure. It?s our mission to know and understand the nuances of your network so a user can?t catch us off guard. At the end of the day, White Mountain IT Services wants to be your go-to source for any and all technology-related issues your business might encounter. We work with you to establish clear, concise expectations, so you can always know what services you?re getting, and at what cost. There are no secret fees or hidden add-on costs. For more information on how we can help your business succeed, give White Mountain IT Services a call at (603) 889-0800.
In fact, according to the Worldwide Cloud IT Infrastructure tracker for the first quarter of 2015, cloud IT will soon trump spending on traditional IT models sometime in the next decade. There are several noteworthy observations to make concerning this image: Traditional IT is still the main player for 2015, rolling in at just over 65 percent of all deployments. Public cloud IT accounts for around 20 percent of all deployments. Private cloud IT makes up over 10 percent of all deployments. Over the next five years, traditional IT will continue to decrease in usage, while the public cloud will make a significant jump in use. Private clouds will continue to grow, but not as quick a rate as the public cloud. On the financial scale, here are some statistics: Spending on cloud IT infrastructures will reach $33.4 billion in 2015 alone. Spending on private cloud infrastructures will grow to $11.7 billion. Public cloud shows projected expenditures and growth of up to $21.7 billion. These numbers show that the cloud industry is growing at a staggering rate, and that while traditional IT expenditures continue to fall, they?re not being mitigated slowly enough to be considered an afterthought yet. Whether or not your business wants to integrate a cloud solution shouldn?t be a question. The benefits greatly outweigh the costs in the long run, and there are a plethora of options to choose from; be it private cloud, public cloud, or even a mix of the two in a hybrid cloud solution. It must be emphasized that the cloud can not only benefit your business model, but it can also increase your company?s mobility. By giving your employees the ability to access mission-critical applications and information while out of the office, you?re opening up more opportunities for productivity outside of the workplace. This lets your team choose how they want to work, and on what device. It?s safe to say that the cloud is revolutionizing the deployment of information and applications, but what are your thoughts on it? If you have questions or concerns, feel free to call White Mountain IT Services. We can discuss how the cloud can benefit your business, and what complications you need to look out for. We can even help you integrate your own customized cloud solution. Contact us at (603) 889-0800 for more information.
Note that most of the threats that come from forgetting to logout are from within your office, like your co-workers. Now, you might think that all of your workmates are trustworthy, but this may not be the case. After all, ?It?s always the person you least suspect.? Before Logging Out of Your PC, Log Out of Your Online Accounts…This might come as a surprise to many computer users, but just because you close your web browser, doesn?t necessarily mean that you?re logged out of your online account. Many online accounts require you to manually click ?Log Off? for you to actually log off. The danger of not manually logging off like this is that the next person who opens your web browser will find your account to be open, and have easy access to it. …Or Be Embarrassed.On the annoying-yet-harmless side of this problem, leaving your account open like this could lead to some mischievous activity on your social media pages. A co-worker may post something in your name that?s completely out of character and everybody will have a good chuckle the next day. …Or Worse.However, that?s a best-case scenario. A less-than-kind person who comes along and finds your account open could easily have access to your email or bank account, which could lead to some serious identity theft issues. In the same way, a hacker could remote into your PC while you’re away and take control of it. This is often done via a trojan-type malware, or a variety of other ways. If you haven?t manually logged out of your accounts, then the hacker who controls your PC could easily access your accounts by opening your web browser, checking your bookmarks and history, and visiting each and every site of value. If they come across a site with an account still open, then they?re in. Next, all they have to do to lock you out is change your password as if they were you, and send the new password to their email account. This is one major headache that could have easily been avoided by just clicking ?Log Off.? The biggest disadvantage of falling victim to malicious activity like this is that you?re not around to stop it. Instead, you?re away from your desk, completely oblivious that your identity is being ripped off, and you won’t figure it out until it?s too late. This is where remote security monitoring from White Mountain IT Services saves the day. With this service, we?re able to monitor your network?s activity and bring to your attention anything that seems suspicious, like the activity of a hacker, or even unauthorized access from an employee. You may not always remember to logout of your accounts before going home for the day, but at least with White Mountain IT Services watching over your system, you won?t have to worry about it.
It?s important that you consider the repercussions of leaving these comments on your company?s website. They?re harmful to your social media and website presence, and can give your site visitors and fans the impression that you don?t take care of your website. Furthermore, they might feel discouraged about leaving legitimate comments, which might nip a potential customer relation success in the bud before it even has a chance to blossom. To help fight spam on your website comments, you can take advantage of several options. However, it?s important to note that none of these are a sure-fire way of eliminating comment spam. Disable All CommentsThis option should only be used as a last resort. The reasoning is simple; even negative comments are valuable to your business for the purpose of understanding how you can improve your services or product. Comments show that people find your website and its content valuable. Even search engines pick up on comments and use them to give your website a higher search ranking. The positive thing about negative comments is that you have the chance to address these issues personally to improve your reputation. This shows that you care about the customer?s experience. Therefore, the only reason you should ever turn off comments on your site is if you plan on performing minimal maintenance to it. Approve All Comments Before They Go PublicIf a moderator is keeping an eye on comments that are submitted, it makes it much easier to spot spam before it?s posted to your comments. However, you should be on the lookout to ensure you don?t get fooled into approving a spam comment. Spammers are known for their remarkable ability to trick users, so don?t feel bad if one or two get through. You can always remove them yourself later. If you are fooled by a comment spammer by letting one slip by, then take solace in the wisdom of former President George W. Bush: ?Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me… you can?t get fooled again.? Use a RecaptchaA recaptcha is a great tool that can help you ensure that all users who comment on your posts are real people, and not spam bots designed to blow up websites with worthless comments. This can be as easy as entering in the numbers or letters that appear on the screen in an image, and it?s usually enough to prevent most spam bots from making it through to the posting. However, this tool isn?t 100 percent effective because a dedicated human comment spammer will fill in the required Recaptcha numbers. Block the Spammers? IP AddressesIf you happen to come across a spammer, your website platform should allow you to block the user?s IP address from accessing your website. By looking at some spammer statistics from Imperva, you will see how blocking a comment spammer?s IP address will go a long way toward taking care of the problem: 80 percent of the comment spam originates from less than one-third of the spammers, and a mere 17 percent of comment spammers actually account for a majority of the comment spam traffic. Imperva also found that nearly 60 percent of comment spammers are active for long periods of time. However you decide to take the fight to spammers, the best way to do so is […]
By resolving one problem with break-fix tech support, you?re creating another more serious issue that could complicate your IT expenditures for the entire upcoming year. What if a seemingly-harmless issue turns out to be a serious problem that requires hours of maintenance to resolve? That?s all cash that you could have spent on implementing more effective solutions or replacing malfunctioning hardware that you?ll never see again. Contrary to popular belief, spending more money than necessary on IT problems only complicates your budget and makes it less flexible. So, what can you do to prevent this? There are two things you can do: either hire a full internal IT department who?s responsible for overseeing your entire technology infrastructure, or outsource the responsibility to a managed IT service provider. Chances are that a small or medium-sized business like yours doesn?t have the resources and budget immediately available to hire multiple trained IT professionals. You?re not alone in this; in fact, most SMBs experience a similar problem. Therefore, the best solution available for the SMB just so happens to be a fantastic one: outsourced IT. There are a plethora of benefits that come from letting an external party handle the administration of all your technology, including: Cost Savings: The main difference between break-fix IT and managed IT is the potential cost. With break-fix IT, you pay an hourly rate to fix already-broken technology. While this is swell, wouldn?t it be better if the technology didn?t break in the first place? This is the proactive stance that managed IT takes, and it comes at a fixed monthly rate that?s designed to turn your IT support into an operational expense, rather than a capital one. Tried-and-True Support: One of the main hold-ups that SMBs have when acquiring IT support is the cost of hiring trained professionals. Managed IT service providers like White Mountain IT Services have several skilled technicians who are dedicated to providing only the best service for your business?s technology. Unified Point of Contact: Instead of having a specific vendor for your printers trying to interface with the guy who set up your network, using White Mountain IT Services as your single ?throat to choke? means we have a full understanding of the nuances of your network, and can manage your many hardware and software vendors accordingly. The benefits don?t stop there. Managed IT provides a whole slew of potential benefits that can keep your business running at maximum capacity at all times. Just give us a call at (603) 889-0800 and ask about what makes us different from other technology professionals.
