Let?s Remember What We First Said: Productivity is a Metric Going back to the first blog in this little series of ours, we shared a simple equation: Productivity = Output/Input Pretty simple, and yet deceptively complex?just as we established back then. However, we?ve reached a point now where we need to add a little bit more complexity to the equation by introducing another variable: time. Time is a core facet of the above equation?it controls how much time that is committed to the output, and is one of two critical metrics that make up the productivity question, the other being the changes that resulted in that output by altering the input. Time is also something that you can influence through something called time leverage. Time leverage is a fancy way of saying the maximum result for the minimum effort, or in other words, working smarter, not harder. You can accomplish it by delegating whatever tasks you can, automating others, and generally using technology to make your processes more efficient?and, by extension, boost your productivity. Let?s conclude our conversation with a brief discussion of how you can make the most of the limited time you and your team members have. How Can You Improve Your Time Leverage? There are a few ways that you can, well, leverage your time more effectively. Delegate More Effectively If you are in a position where you are instructing others to complete various tasks, you can help to optimize how time is being spent by going about it more strategically. While it is always good to try and expand the skill sets of your team members to include more things, don?t hesitate to let your resident expert in something handle most of the tasks related to that thing. Make sure that you?re also explaining what your expectations are in detail, and giving your team the amount of support needed. Be More Mindful in the Goals You Set Obviously, the way that you spend your time is going to have an impact on your potential productivity. Therefore, the goals you set for yourself and your team should reflect this, and should be adjusted as you proceed so that they can be improved. The SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Timely, and Measurable) framework for goal setting is a good path to follow as you do so. Turn to the Experts Back to technology for a moment, it never hurts to have someone in your corner to make sure that everything is working the way you want (and need) it to. That?s where we come in. White Mountain IT Services can assist you in maintaining and optimizing your business? productivity by improving the IT you have at your disposal, increasing your capabilities through various measures. Learn more about what we can do to assist you by calling (603) 889-0800 today.

The feature is not available just yet, but once it becomes available, individuals can enable it to automatically archive applications, resulting in an estimated reduction of storage space by about 60%. This is pretty huge; the app?s data will remain on your device?s storage, but the application itself will have to be re-installed to the device from the Play Store when you need to use it again. This is a notable feature in that manually uninstalling an application from your device will actually delete all data associated with the app from your device, meaning that it would be lost for good. Of course, uninstalling apps that you don?t use in the slightest is a good practice, but for apps that are used infrequently, archiving is a welcome alternative. The main goal of introducing such a feature to Android users is really for the developers? sake, too. By enabling archiving for apps, this feature essentially gives users the ability to reduce the negative impacts of installing too many apps and having to uninstall them. This also helps developers, too, in that it reduces the likelihood that individuals will choose to manually uninstall their apps and cease using them altogether. Whenever an individual wants to install a new app and the system finds the user is running out of storage, Google will ask if the user wants to archive infrequently used applications. It?s an interesting solution to a problem that is more common than you might think. Of course, there are other options for shoring up your data storage issues, like cloud storage and SD cards. But for those who don?t have these options immediately available to them, this is a solid alternative. Will you take advantage of this feature on your Android device?

Consider Your Network?s Purpose First, you should consider why you are implementing the wireless connection and how it will be used. When you build it intentionally, you?ll find you get more out of your solutions. For example, you might not necessarily rely on it, but you want to implement it for greater options and to give your customers the choice to connect when they want to. Regardless of your reasons for implementing your solution, knowing how and why it is being implemented will help answer some tough questions during deployment. It?s also worth looking into your current hardware, or the hardware that will connect to the network. Older devices might not support the latest wireless standards, but thankfully, most routers can support older devices perfectly fine. Finally, once you have an idea of what you?re dealing with, you?ll have to consider how far you want your wireless network to extend. Do you want to open it up to devices outside your organization, or even outside your building?s walls? Be sure to consider these questions when putting together your implementation plan. The Right Bandwidth Goes a Long Way Your bandwidth will likely be one of the major factors in the quality of your wireless connection. Ensure that you take time to determine just how much bandwidth your business needs to operate effectively. Once you have an idea for this, you?ll be able to determine just how fast you need to go. Implement Appropriate Hardware Getting the right hardware is easy enough, but you?ll also have to consider the wireless standard that your devices prefer. The most utilized standards for high-speed wireless transmission are 802.11a and 802.11g. 802.11b is also reliable but delivers slower Internet speeds. Set Up Your Network Your wireless connection?s hardware and its location will be yet another major factor to consider during setup. Sometimes businesses will need multiple connectors to guarantee that the signal is distributed well enough around the office. Also be sure to consider guest use into this deployment strategy. Build Security Into Your Approach Your wireless network will run using an operating system and on firmware that requires patches and updates, just like any other device on your network. Therefore, it needs to be carefully protected and monitored to ensure security. You?ll want to enable firewall permissions, assign user access, and so much more, all of which is made easier if you have a security professional available to assist. Some Tips for the DIYers The best way to get the most out of your wireless network is to work with White Mountain IT Services, but if you want to give it a shot yourself first, we?ve got your back. Here are a couple of ideas to consider: Change your router?s password: Your router will have a default admin password that anyone can find by searching for it online. This is something you absolutely want to change upon setup. Turn off Service Set Identifier (SSID): The SSID is what anyone walking down the street will see when they see your wireless connection. You can disable this so that your network will be hidden. Change your default SSID: Additionally, you?ll want to adjust your default SSID name and password. Turn on MAC filtering: If you are going to use access control you?ll need to turn this setting on. If you […]

Good Backups vs Bad Backups When you were in college, working on a big paper or presentation, you may have had the hindsight to drag the files over to a thumb drive or external drive, or email them to yourself, just to make sure you had a spare copy in case something went wrong. That?s a backup, sure, but you needed to have the foresight to do it. You needed to manually stick a copy of the data somewhere, remember where it was, keep track of it, and hope you remembered to keep it updated as the original file changed. That is a bad backup. Sure, it accomplishes the goal of having redundancy for a particular piece of information, but it?s only as reliable as a person is. On top of that, thumb drives can be lost or stolen, and they break easily. They aren?t really designed for long-term storage. Your email inbox isn?t exactly the world?s best data repository either. This was kind of an extreme case, but it highlights the factors that make a bad backup. If you have to think about it, act on it, or it relies on a single point of fallible data storage, it?s a bad backup. A good backup has its own redundancies in place, and it doesn?t rely on human interaction to work?it simply does. There?s more to making a good backup, and that?s what we?ll be going over for the rest of this article. A Backup Isn?t Just a Copy of Files First of all, it?s important to understand just what your company data is. This will be different for just about any organization, but it?s likely you have a combination of standard files and data in directories and subdirectories on a centralized server. These will be things like Word documents, PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, signed and scanned documents, proposal templates, images, video, CAD files, and that sort of thing.  Then you might have certain applications that your organization uses that store data in one or more databases, or they have some proprietary way to store information that isn?t quite as cut and dry as a ?folder full of files.? Essentially, a database is just a big file or series of files, but to a typical user, it might not be inherently clear how that data gets stored and where it is located.  Let?s take a look at our own helpdesk ticketing system. When you submit a support request to us, whether it be via email, or through our portal, or you call us at (603) 889-0800 and have a technician generate it, it goes into our ticketing system. This ticketing system holds a full historical record of everything we?ve ever done to support you and your network. Thorough documentation is absolutely essential for us to effectively do our jobs and provide good support, so when a technician is looking into an issue, it?s important that they can read through everything else we?ve ever done for you to determine if the current issue is related to something that happened or was changed in the past. We also track each individual piece of hardware and software we manage, so we can look back and see how much time and effort goes into supporting everything?to help make informed decisions on hardware that might […]

What Constitutes Enterprise Security? Enterprise security is an umbrella term for all of the strategies, policies, and procedures you put in place to keep your business safe from threats. This will include measures you implement to protect against cybercriminals, scammers, and potentially even your vendors and how they use your information. Small businesses might look at this and think that it?s unlikely it will become an issue, but the fact of the matter is that failure to have it is putting your business at risk. Why is Enterprise Security Important? Simply put, an ESS tool means keeping your business and data safe from theft and destruction. Businesses that experience much success will have to scale their services accordingly and deploy innovative new tools to keep data safe. ESS protects your business from all potential avenues of attack, significantly reducing the likelihood of a successful scam or hack. How To Plan for Enterprise Security If you want to maximize results from your ESS plan, then you?ll need to know what goes into making it successful. You?ll need to understand the devices accessing your network, as well as the demands you are placing on those devices. Most businesses will only consider enterprise security when it becomes apparent that more basic strategies prove ineffective for their needs. To implement more powerful solutions, you must start with a complete audit of your network to determine what must be done?a process which should ideally be carried out at least once a year. Once you know where your network currently stands, you can start to make changes for the better. Other ESS Considerations One important consideration for ESS is cloud computing. Almost all businesses use cloud computing in at least some capacity, and the fact remains that the cloud makes security a bit more difficult than you might think. All it takes is a simple misconfiguration to leave a business vulnerable. Furthermore, many businesses use Internet of Things devices, or they forget that Internet of Things devices themselves interface with the network and are effectively endpoints that must also be secured. Security professionals often overlook the threats that originate within a network, so to combat this, ESS strategies might implement zero-trust policies that keep tabs on employee devices on the network. If a zero-trust policy is in place on a network, self-sabotage and negligence become far less likely, and any good security system will include it. White Mountain IT Services can help your business shore up its security and prepare itself for any potential threats that could surface as a result of growth or new technology adoption. To learn more, call us today at (603) 889-0800.