Here are some of the most important predictions for where the Internet of Things is heading, as per a HAX Hardware Trends Report. Consumer Devices Are ChangingHardware providers are always competing with each other over the next best solutions for businesses and other environments. With the data collected by the Internet of Things, companies can innovate and create new ways of reinventing older technologies for new purposes. The smart home (and smart technology on a greater scale) is a perfect example of this, providing functionality on devices that didn?t necessarily have it before. With this new type of usage, connected devices can change many infrastructures in the near future. Health Technology Makes ProgressForbes describes the incoming healthcare technology as P4 Medicine, standing for predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory. The IoT devices of the future will be able to predict future health conditions, diagnose issues, and proactively treat them before health problems reach a peak. It?s kind of like monitoring your business?s network for future hardware failure symptoms before they actually become issues. By looking at data collected by healthcare devices, conditions can be proactively treated. Enterprises and Industries Will See Greater GrowthSmall businesses can use the Internet of Things to make progress, but enterprises and industries will stand to gain a considerable amount of ground through its implementation. Some examples of industries that could be affected by the Internet of Things include infrastructure, logistics, agriculture, and retail–all of which benefit greatly from data. IoT technologies can help your business put together better workflows and streamline operations. Some technologies used include automated technologies, maintenance robots, agricultural sensors, and so on. Is your business ready for the Internet of Things? White Mountain IT Services can help. To learn more, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

Select Your ChartExcel has several built-in chart types that you can choose from, with many of the more complex ones being a little difficult to use for normal business purposes. You can easily get your point across with a simple column, pie, or line chart. Column/Bar ChartsColumn charts are used best when you need to show how much data has changed over a certain period of time. You can also use them to compare values at a single data point. For example, you could use a column chart to show the revenue earned by individual sales people. You use a bar chart to do mostly the same thing as a column chart, only it?s horizontal rather than vertical. These are very useful to show particularly large discrepancies between data, or when you need to label your points. Pie ChartsA pie chart is great if you need to compare percentages according to a group of data. Let?s say that you are tracking how new customers say they find your business. You can break them out into a pie chart to compare and visually explain the bigger slices. Line ChartsYou can use a line chart to see how your data changes over time, as it allows you to showcase multiple data trends all at the same time. With the aforementioned examples above, a line chart could be used to showcase the frequency of how often these threats made themselves apparent on your network. Building the ChartsExcel has a simple chart building tool that you can use to showcase data from a spreadsheet. First, you want to make sure your data is properly organized in the spreadsheet. Next, highlight what data you want to show in your chart. Once you?ve done this, just select the chart type that you want to use. You can do so either in the list of Recommended Charts, or from the list of All Charts. You?ll then see your new chart appear. You can further customize your chart by using Chart Elements, Chart Styles, and Chart Filters. You can use other options to further customize your chart, and with a little bit of improvisation, you can build a chart that both accurately represents your data and gets your point across in the most effective way possible. To learn more about technology tips and tricks, be sure to subscribe to our blog.

Mostly, people do celebrate the holidays. According to Pew Research, between 90-and-95 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas. As a result, many businesses will not be staffed for Christmas. One element that has to be taken into consideration is cybersecurity. While a study by IBM suggests that cyberattacks don?t peak during the holidays, many organizations like to hire seasonal help to make operations run more smoothly. This opens these companies up to social engineering attacks and other malignant computer issues. This extra risk, along with the undeniable amount of stress and reliance these computing systems have on them, make it crucial to have a full-scale cybersecurity plan in place. That?s why many organizations have consulted with IT professionals like White Mountain IT Services to protect their business? network and infrastructure through diligent planning. ?It takes roughly six months to really prepare,? said Peter Tran of RSA, a computer security firm. Another expert, Demetrios Lazarikos of Blue Lava Consulting stresses testing systems to ensure their cyber security protocols are strong, ?The fear is that the system will break. You test the system; you stress it; you try to anticipate the traffic.? He goes on to say that different types of attacks, including Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks create big issues, and that if there is no dedicated incident-response plan in place, a company?s IT is a sitting duck. By having a plan to protect, test, and guard the systems your business depends on to ensure no infiltrations happen, and any that do are mitigated quickly, any company, especially one that depends on its IT to succeed (think eCommerce), can sustain themselves until business returns to normal after the holidays. The IT support leaders at White Mountain IT Services understand how important cybersecurity is for the sustainability of your business, and are committed to helping New Hampshire businesses protect their networks through any type of situation. Call us at (603) 889-0800 to learn more.

A year-long partnership between Google and UC Berkeley yielded a study of how online accounts are cracked. They found that businesses are much more vulnerable to phishing attacks than actual legitimate data breaches. Google found that keyloggers were one of the primary contributors to this trend, capturing an estimated 788,000 compromised credentials. Phishing, on the other hand, had exposed 12 million credentials. Data breaches contributed 3.3 million credentials to the total. This information led Google to the conclusion that phishing attacks were a much greater threat to businesses, backed up by research showing that up to 25 percent of the passwords that were still in use were stolen in phishing attacks. Data breaches provided credentials currently used by individuals only seven percent of the time. Phishing is known to do much more than just allow unauthorized users to enter a network or infrastructure. In some cases, phishing can help malicious entities spread viruses or install malware on unsuspecting victims. There are usually signs of such a breach, though, even if they aren?t obvious at first glance. The problem is that it?s not always apparent when such a breach occurs, with the worst-case scenario being a complete and sudden halt to operations. Either way, the point stands that the first step toward a data breach could very well be a phishing attack. While phishing attacks are more common than data breaches, a data breach has the opportunity to cause more damage than you can possibly imagine. Take your worst-case scenario and double it–that?s probably a good estimate for how much trouble a data breach could cause for your organization. A phishing attack steals specific data, but a data breach can expose so much more, including the data of your staff, customers, and vendors. Besides the obvious data security problems associated with phishing attacks, it?s just downright embarrassing to have been had by hackers. It can leave a scar on your business that?s difficult to recover from. To learn more about how you can protect your business from security threats, reach out to us at (603) 889-0800.

To begin to set this up you have to open Cortana?s Settings. To do this, click on the Cortana Icon on the taskbar. Then select the gear-shaped icon in the Cortana window to access Cortana?s settings. Make sure that the Let Cortana respond to ?Hey Cortana? setting is toggled on. Then select Learn how I say ?Hey Cortana?. You will then be asked to answer six phrases to help Cortana determine the way you say ?Hey Cortana?. Once you?ve completed that step, return to Cortana?s settings and make sure that the try to respond only to me option is selected. Now you have Cortana?s full attention. You can have her help you with any number of issues, while helping you navigate Windows 10. Do you use Cortana? Siri? Google Assistant? Alexa? Bixby? If so, which are your favorites? Leave your thoughts with us in the comments below.