Luckily, there are a few ways to spend this time that could prove beneficial to the day?s responsibilities, and that don?t require your computer to do! Prepare for Your Day Fortunately, your computer is only necessary to actually complete the tasks in store for you. Planning your strategy to tackle them doesn?t expressly require the use of your device, as you likely have a decent idea of what your agenda looks like. This means you can look at the time spent waiting on your workstation as an opportunity, instead of an inconvenience. Instead of blankly staring at your screen, take a sheet of scrap paper and focus on your strategy for the rest of the day. Are there any tasks that you need to complete more so than others? What do you need to accomplish–whether you need to check in with a coworker, call a client on the phone, or fulfill some other responsibility–and what needs to be rearranged to allow you the time you will need to do so? While it may seem silly at first, exercises like these could prove to be helpful to getting in the right mindset for a productive day. Plus, it?ll likely take just long enough to do so that your workstation will be able to start up. Straighten Up Your Workspace We?ve all been there? a desk is clean and tidy, everything precisely where it should be, until it suddenly isn?t at all. Between those moments of just plopping something down (to look at later, of course) and the habit many have of allowing things to be plopped down more and more frequently, it is little wonder that the workstation of today tends to be a bit unkempt. However, if the time spent waiting for a computer to start up is also utilized as the chance to organize the work area, not only will it make the work environment a generally more pleasant place to be, it?ll make a better impression upon any visitors that happen to come to the office. After all, a messy desk could be the difference between a client, and a missed opportunity. Refill and Mingle Of course, productivity can sometimes be measured in more than just minutes saved on a task. Oftentimes, productivity can present itself in other ways. For instance, a good working relationship can expedite no shortage of tasks, so getting a second cup of coffee and chatting in the break room can provide a surprising boost to the workflow. By simply establishing lines of communication and camaraderie between you and your co-workers through casual interaction, operations will likely run much more smoothly, and the workplace will be a more pleasant place to be. Otherwise, if you?d rather try to minimize the downtime that your users experience in general, you should consider implementing a policy that requires maintenance to take place after hours, reducing the likelihood of workday delays. A managed service provider can assist you by implementing these updates at the end of each workday, once your employees have left. As a result, your devices remain up-to-date, without the inconvenience of updating them when there?s work to be done. Interested in learning what else White Mountain IT Services can do to assist your business? Reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

It should be mentioned that the specifics of how to cut costs related to your organization?s printing will largely depend on your current costs in the workplace. Your business uses printers, paper and ink/toner (depending on the device used) and filing cabinets to store all of your documents. All of this doesn?t even include time and resources spent making sure that these devices are being managed and maintained properly. We can help your organization overcome the many struggles that a business faces when suffering from printing costs. Upgrade Your Printers If you?re using outdated printing technology, your business could benefit from a hardware refresh. For example, some businesses that use old ink-jet printers can benefit from using a laser printer, as they are generally considered more efficient with their print jobs and the costs associated with printing over an extended period of time. Manage Your Resources More Efficiently. Cutting out printing as a whole might not be possible, so you should instead identify how you can better spend your resources. Your business can make more efficient use of resources by closely monitoring how much of what you use to cut down on waste. Sometimes all it takes is changing settings on computers and printers and storing the right surplus without risking running out of resources. Go Paperless Loose papers can make any office look messy and disorganized. Physical documents are simply too hard to keep track of in an office environment. A document management system can help your business better manage its files in a digital environment, which means no more digging through bulky filing cabinets or manually searching for files. You might be surprised by how much time you can save with this. When it comes to printing costs, White Mountain IT Services can help you maximize your return on investment for your printing solutions. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

For the purposes of business, automation allows for certain time-consuming tasks to be effectively ?removed? from everyday operations. The reason we put that in quotes is because the tasks aren?t removed, but they are handled by an automated system that doesn?t require the attention of a human worker for it to happen. We?re here to discuss some of the ways that productivity can be influenced by automation. Customer Support Some organizations have a department that is dedicated to customer support. This involves helping customers with their questions and concerns. The issue here is that these professionals devote their entire workday to these tasks, which means they aren?t doing anything else, and they are wasting potentially valuable time on monotonous tasks that nobody in their right mind likes doing. To move away from these positions that provide little fulfillment for employees, A.I.-powered chatbots have been introduced to free up resources. Eliminating Monotonous Tasks Imagine having to send the same email to 200 clients without using a mail merge or mailing list. This is what certain monotonous tasks can feel like at times, like stuffing the same envelope for physical mailing over and over again. While the process might differ depending on the task, certain methods of automation can eliminate tasks from the workday. If these tasks are removed from people?s responsibilities, imagine the creativity and productivity that can come from it. Automated Data Backup and Security There are some tasks out there that you don?t want users to handle simply because of the possibility that it will be handled poorly or inadequately. Some of these include data backups and security updates or monitoring. Depending on the service, a computer or software solution can be much more consistent as a whole and do it in a faster way than a human can. Are you ready to get started with automation services? White Mountain IT Services can help. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

Your Average Website Say you go to a company?s website and are interested in learning more about a service. You fill out an Internet form with your name, and often your address, your email address, and your phone number. When you hit submit on the form, you have entrusted a business with your personally identifiable information; and, most of these companies don?t just use it to reach out to you about the product or service you were interested in. This information is valuable The information you provide is bundled with the countless other people?s PII and sold to marketing agencies for sound profits. The company that you provided that information to looks at it as their right, as you have willingly provided it. But what happens if that company gets hacked? All of the information you?ve provided to that company is now publicly available to whomever wants to purchase it. So, who is responsible? Bad news, in most places in the U.S. there is absolutely no recourse for the consumer if presented with this situation. It?s not like they can turn back time. It isn?t only willing participation that strips you of your data, either. Almost everything you do on the Internet–whether it be messaging, streaming media, shopping, or simply surfing the web–leaves a data trail right back to you. This goes for everyone. When each person that uses the Internet has a trail, and on that trail is all of their most personal information, it stands to reason that there would be people on the other side of this attempting to circumvent that data stream into their possession because they know they can profit from it. Data shapes the story of an individual online. A person that knows where to look can find out about people?s most intimate relationships, their financial situation, their political beliefs, just about anything they want to know. That is why it is important to have an idea about how to protect yourself online. Protection The first thing you have to understand about data protection is simple: you have value. Your name has value, your address and phone number have value, hell, your sexual preference and your favorite food has value. Everything about you has some kind of value to everyone looking to get their hands on it. But all that data has the most value to you. It may not seem like it, but nearly every company that deals in PII, while not clamoring to pay users for their data, do spend a lot of capital getting that information. Think about all the sales that got you to buy something. Think about all the discounts offered to get you to fill out that form. Think about the investment in website-connected software. Knowing the value of your data should be the first sign that you need to protect it. That?s why we?ve put together these seven tips to help you protect your PII: Make up creative security questions – Many accounts will want you to come up with a security question that only you would know the answer to. Unfortunately, people tend to use situations that other people could guess. You have to understand that hackers are sometimes fantastically crafty and outwitting them takes some consideration. By picking a question and answer that can?t be […]

The United States? National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued new password recommendations and standards for government officials, and everyone can stand to benefit from at least considering the recommendations–even in the business sector. Some of these might seem a bit odd compared to what professionals typically say about passwords but bear with us. Keep in mind, these recommended practices are new and not supported on all sites and login accounts. Here are just a few of them: Make the Passwords User-Friendly: Above all else, under the regulations of NIST, passwords should be user-friendly and place the burden on the verifier whenever possible. NakedSecurity explains this further by elaborating that forcing best practices upon users doesn?t always help: ?Much research has gone into the efficacy of many of our so-called ?best practices? and it turns out they don?t help enough to be worth the pain they cause.? Use a Minimum of 8 Characters: NIST?s new guidelines suggest that all passwords have a bare minimum of eight characters. This can include spaces, ASCII characters, and even emojis. The maximum number of characters is also indicated at 64. Cross-check poor password choices: NIST recommends that users stay away from well-known or common passwords, like ?password,? ?thisisapassword,? etc. As for some of the things to avoid using, here are some to consider: Composition rules aren?t great: Stop trying to tell your employees what to use in their passwords. Instead, encourage users to use passphrases that are long and alphanumeric in nature. Ditch password hints: This is one you might not have heard of. NIST asks that password hints be removed, as anyone trying to break into an account can use their knowledge of the target to overcome this barrier and change a password (or find out the current one). The same can be said for knowledge-based authentication involving questions about the user?s personal life. No more password expiration: This goes back to the ?user-friendly? aspect of passwords mentioned earlier. The only time passwords should be reset is if they are forgotten, phished, or stolen. Overall, NIST wants to try and help make passwords less of a pain for users while still maintaining a similar level of security. What are your thoughts on some of these new standards? Let us know in the comments.