Take a Risk with Gamification Gamification motivates people by drawing from a person’s desire for achievement and competition. Turing a goal into a game can be done with common tasks like employee training and even project completion. Gamification can also be used to get customers more engaged with your product or service. When customers engage your company as they would a competitive game, brand loyalty increases and you’re provided with valuable feedback that can be used to improve marketing efforts, productivity, and customer service. Acquire Motivation Using Gaming Tactics Gamification has broad (and board) applications. Businesses using gamification tactics aren’t necessarily dealing with customers playing cards and paying employees with Monopoly money, although, these strategies certainly qualify as legitimate gamification tactics. One successful example of gamification that you’re likely familiar with is reward points. Credit card companies reward consumers with points in order to motivate them to spend more money. These points can be redeemed for something a consumer cares about like airline miles and credit at their favorite retailer. Motivating with rewards is a powerful gamification tactic that drives sales. Guess Who? Assembling Your Gamification Team Implementing gamification for your business takes some “outside the box” thinking. Successful gamification tactics capitalize on a person’s drive for fun competition. Therefore, you don’t want the person in charge of gamifying a company task to be someone with a straight-laced and by-the-book personality. Instead, look for the guy or girl that has a knack for having fun and knows how to motivate others. You will also want to involve a staff member that has a proven creative side. With your gamification team in place, all you have to do is roll the dice with your team and watch company morale improve! Before you know it, everyone will get the same enjoyment out of your business as a friendly game of poker (when the cards are going your way, of course). The Game of Life and Technology In the same way that the most popular games of today are video games, there are great gamification solutions available for your company’s technology. Many of these gamification solutions can be installed on your company’s website. Gamification technology can also be utilized over your company’s network in order to track staff performance. This can turn the completion of projects into healthy competition. Gamification Helps Technology Users Get a Clue Gaming elements are showing up in more technologies. Software manufacturers are even making a game out of teaching users how to utilize their software. Adobe, for example, has an onboarding program for Photoshop called LevelUp that teaches users the basics of the software with assignments where badges and points are earned. Fun gaming techniques like this are making technology less intimidating for people that aren’t technologically inclined. Be UNO in Sales! What are some ways that your business and its technology can turn up the fun with gamification? Think about your favorite game. What makes it so engaging? How can you incorporate those elements into your business? Thanks to gamification, the next time someone asks you, “Do you think this is a game?” You can roll your twenty-sided dice and reply, “Why yes. Yes I do. Go fish.”
WIRED reporter Andy Greenburg experienced this terror first-hand, though he was expecting it to happen. In fact, he’s already had two run-ins with this type of hack. The first time was in 2013, when researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek accompanied Greenburg as he drove a Ford Escape. As he reports, “they sat in the backseat with their laptops, cackling as they disabled my brakes, honked the horn, jerked the seat belt, and commandeered the steering wheel.” This doesn’t sound like something you’d want to happen while driving on the highway; that much is for certain. Two years later, and this is precisely what happened the second time Greenburg met up with the researchers. Miller and Valasek instructed Greenburg to drive on the highway while they remotely hacked the vehicle. The only issue is that he didn’t know when the attack would strike. Still, they assured him that they wouldn’t try anything life-threatening, but when you’re faced with a vehicle that you have practically no control over, that’s a little hard to believe. The two succeeded, taking over the air conditioning, spamming the windshield wipers, and blaring Kanye West (the self-proclaimed “greatest living rock star in the world,” mind you) at maximum volume. They then mercilessly cut the transmission and brakes, which abruptly ended Greenburg’s ride down Interstate 64. Yes, that’s right. Hackers can remotely mess with your vehicles if they really want to. The code used by Miller and Valasek is designed to use the Jeep’s entertainment console as a jumping point, issuing commands to the dashboard functions, steering wheel, brakes, and even the transmission. Though the code is only in the possession of the researchers (for the time being), you can bet that hackers are always looking for ways to profit off of the misfortune of others, and it’s only a matter of time before they find a practical use for hacks just like this one, and much more. Following this troublesome vulnerability being exposed, there was a recall on the Jeep Cherokees affected by this code, though Chrysler wasn’t able to locate a definitive defect. Either way, such a drastic stunt only proves how technology is pushing toward greater communications without paying equal attention to security. In order to avoid the “crash and burn” aspect of The Internet of Things, it’s imperative that you take action now before it’s too late to do so. This means that, as a business owner, it’s up to you to take the proper precautions to shield your organization’s network from potentially malicious activity. Integrating powerful security solutions is one way you can make accessing your network easy for your employees, but difficult for any unauthorized devices. Give us a call at (831) 758-3636 to learn more about how you can take the first steps toward protecting your business from rogue devices.
Privacy Controversy One of the biggest problems that most users have with Windows 10 is how the default settings are set to provide certain information to Cortana and Microsoft, in exchange for enhanced services and features. Granted, if you’re using the free versions of Gmail, Google Drive, or even Google Chrome, your information is already being collected by Google, so you’re no stranger to having your information collected as it is. It’s up to you to decide whether or not you want to expose this info to Microsoft. For reference, by default, it collects: Search queries submitted to Bing A voice command to Cortana Private communications including email content Information from a document uploaded to OneDrive Requests to Microsoft for support Error reports Information gathered from cookies Data collected from third parties Nothing too serious or out of the ordinary, but if you’re concerned that Microsoft knows too much about you already, you’ll want to adjust your settings at the cost of missing out on some of the new custom features. No Media Center and DVD Player We realize that there aren’t a lot of people out there who are still using Windows Media Center when there are several other apps out there available that perform the same function, but the avid few who are proponents of this piece of software will be disappointed to find out that Windows 10 did away with WMC. Additionally, Windows 10 also lacks preinstalled software for playing DVDs, which is strange considering how simple it is to use just about anything else to do so. The solution for this is to install a free media player like VLC Media Player. VLC handles DVDs as well as virtually all types of media files whether it’s audio or video. There are, of course, a plethora of paid DVD/Blu-Ray player apps on the market, but when all you want to do is watch your extended copy of Mad Max, it’s not required that you purchase new software. Lack of Universal Applications Another fault that plagues Windows 10 is the same that hurt Windows 8 and 8.1. While there is indeed an app store, the amount of universal apps is somewhat… lackluster. While Microsoft might make it seem like there’s a significant variety of applications available, there really isn’t that much available in terms of sheer utility. It’s mostly just silly games and other unnecessary features that offer nothing for the workplace. Still, some of the important ones are available, like the Microsoft Office suite. The only solution for this is to wait it out. Just like the early days of iOS and Android, who both took a few years to grow their library of apps, Windows is going to experience the same. The good news? With so many users adopting and running Windows 10, app developers have an incentive to get their products in the hands of Windows 10 users. We feel it won’t be long before the Windows 10 Store is on par with Google’s and Apple’s. Forced Updates One aspect of Windows 10 that is proving to be a difficult and somewhat frustrating feature for some users is the inclusion of automatic, forced updates into the patching system. This means that all PCs running Windows 10 that aren’t tied to an upgrade server will always get […]
2. Ensure Backup Procedures Are Checked Regularly – Many times business owners think that they have a backup system in place only to find out after it’s too late that it hasn’t been working properly. It may seem like your files are being backed up daily, however, the backup could have become corrupt or it is not backing up huge chunks of critical data. Check your backup procedures regularly to ensure they are working properly in order to be sure that ALL of your data can be recovered. In the age of BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Devices) it is also important to frequently backup data on your employee’s personal laptops, iPads or Blackberrys, so make sure you have a procedure in place to check those backups as well. 3. Make Sure Updated Virus Protection and Firewalls Are Always Enabled – Far too many companies either have no virus protection, expired virus software licenses, or disabled virus programs that aren’t running at all. This makes their business technology vulnerable to virus attacks from emails, spam, data downloads, and unreputable websites. Further, because of inadequate firewall protection about 40% of small to medium businesses will have their network accessed by a hacker. Chances are, when these businesses are attacked they will be entirely unaware it is happening. In order to protect your valuable data and assets, ensure your virus protection is adequate, up-to-date and functioning properly and that your firewall is intact. Finally, don’t forget to update security patches and change passwords when an employee leaves in order to deter hacking attempts. 4. Monitor Server Drives – Dangerously full server drives can bring their own set of problems – ranging from program and server crashes to sluggish email delivery. Proactive monitoring and maintenance of your server can spare your business a lot of problems down the road. 5. Regularly Check Critical Built-In Logs – Very few problems with technology emerge suddenly. These problems typically progress over time and evolve into more serious problems. Frequently review your critical built-in log files to help identify the problem before it has gotten out of control and wreaks havoc on your business infrastructure.
The risks of a hard drive crash are similar to any other type of hardware failure. If your drive is used for storing data, it can lead to data loss. If you’re not using a quality backup and disaster recovery solution, you can bet that it’ll be difficult, if not impossible, to restore your infrastructure to its former glory. Frequent Computer Crashes If there’s anything you’ve learned from reading our newsletter, it should be that computer crashes are never a good sign of anything. Ever. The reason it crashes is because it’s incapable of locating or accessing important files that are crucial to the operation of the system, and it’s a clear sign that something is not right with your machine. Disappearing Data Another sign that your hard drive is failing is that data isn’t where it’s supposed to be. You’ll probably notice this when you try to access a mission-critical application, but the software can’t load because a file is missing or some other complication. Unless someone is behind the scenes messing with the location of data, your hard drive is probably just about done. Out-of-the-Ordinary Noises You know there’s something wrong when you hear strange grinding noises coming from your hard drive, but really, if anything at all sounds out of the ordinary, you probably have a big problem on your hands. If you start hearing noises coming from your hard drive that aren’t normal, you should shut down your PC and contact a professional for further consultation. These typically sound like a clicking noise coming from inside your PC. The last thing you want is your hard drive crashing on you while you’re in the middle of an important project. Your Computer Doesn’t Recognize the Drive If your PC doesn’t acknowledge the hard drive, it’s a clear sign that there’s something wrong. You can test whether this is an issue with the hard drive by testing it in another PC, but you should do so only if there’s a professional on-hand to guide you through the process. Painfully Slow Processing Speed If it takes your PC ages to open a basic folder or file, this means that it’s having trouble locating and accessing it. Basically, if there’s ever a problem opening files, you can assume that there’s something wrong with the hard drive. The idea behind these tips is to identify problems with your technology before they cause irreparable damage to your systems and, more importantly, your business. Unexpected problems can cause downtime, which is one expense your organization can’t afford to deal with. By taking these proactive approaches, you can make sure you spot a problem before it harms your business’s productivity. What SRS Networks offers is a more comprehensive and equally proactive solution called our remote maintenance and monitoring solution. We are able to monitor your network and detect hard drive issues before the drive actually gives you any signs. Most of the time, through special logs that we monitor, we can step in and save your data before the drive fails on you. Give us a call at (831) 758-3636 to learn more.
The problem for these businesses is that every cent they spend on managing physical technology won’t necessarily produce much of a return on their substantial investments as they need to actively maintain the technology in order for it to work properly. This has left many companies hemorrhaging money by just trying to compete. If your business is still hosting all of its own IT infrastructure, it may be time for you to consider moving your IT out of your office. While hosting your own IT has its benefits, for the small or medium-sized business it may bring more expense than it’s worth. In moving your IT infrastructure to the cloud or to a colocated data center, you may see a dramatic cost savings, or at the very least a shift in way your organization pays for its crucial IT systems. The cloud, in particular, offers many SMBs a very attractive value proposition: Receive a scalable IT infrastructure, hosted in a secure data center, with proactive maintenance, billed monthly as an operational cost. For some SMBs it may not make sense to move your entire IT infrastructure to the cloud. In fact, some organizations, just like the idea that they are in complete control of their IT, or more specifically, their data. If your organization needs to adhere to often-complicated IT regulations, or if you just want the freedom to have control over your company’s IT management, you still don’t have to host your computing infrastructure on your premises. By purchasing server space in a colocation facility, you can set up a private cloud platform that provides your business with all the benefits of cloud computing (like cost savings) without having to relinquish complete control over your crucial IT systems. The professional IT consultants at SRS Networks can assess your situation and find a solution that works for your needs. We have a complete technical understanding of cloud computing systems, and how they fit into a SMB’s IT strategy. Our technicians can also assist your company in the proliferation of new computing systems to provide your organization with powerful functions such as communications (like VoIP and email), productivity application deployment, and even cloud-based security solutions. It’s hard to ignore the benefits that moving all or some of your company’s computing infrastructure to the cloud can bring. For an organization that is looking to free up capital, or simply to increase mobility, cloud computing can be of real benefit. Call us today at (831) 758-3636 to learn more about how moving your IT out of your office can really benefit your company.
If you’ve taken proper precautions to ensure your former employees can’t sabotage your network and steal your data, you’re golden. However, this simply isn’t the case with a lot of companies, mainly because they don’t count on their former coworkers backstabbing them. This isn’t the entire issue at hand. Even if a former employee doesn’t intentionally take data from your business upon resignation, they could get hacked in the future, leaving sensitive data exposed. The best way to avoid employees walking off with corporate data is to take proper precautions, starting before they walk out your door. Perform an Exit Interview Besides getting the opportunity to discuss why they’re leaving the company, conducting an exit interview is a good time to iron out details that shouldn’t be left unchecked. This is a good time to talk about what accounts the exiting employee has access to, what devices they’ve borrowed from the company, important documents they might possess, and how to get in touch with them after they leave. Take Back Any Company-Provided Devices Once you’ve identified that your employee is indeed leaving the organization, you need to collect the devices they’ve borrowed from the company, like laptops, mobile devices, and storage devices like USBs or hard drives. This helps to ensure that you don’t let corporate data slip through the cracks. Collecting these devices ensures that you’re the one in control of your data, which mitigates the chance of the data being compromised, both voluntarily and involuntarily. Promptly Change Email Passwords and Remote Access Accounts For obvious reasons, you need to revoke access to their email accounts. This helps to prevent them from accessing information that they shouldn’t have access to following their departure from your company. Change All Relevant Passwords You never know just how many passwords an employee might walk out of your company with, especially if they’re saved in their personal mobile device’s browser cache or they use a password manager. This is why it’s important to make sure that all passwords are changed. If an employee were to get hacked, or decide that they don’t agree with their dismissal from your organization, it could put your data at risk of being compromised. Wipe Mobile Devices If your network can dish out security policies to mobile devices that gain access to company email, you will want to make sure you remotely wipe your accounts. This is something you would have needed to set up prior, but it prevents the user from walking away with their email in their pocket. Even if your former employee isn’t a threat, if the device is lost or stolen it could come back to bite you. Warn Your IT As always, you need to keep IT in the loop so they can keep an eye out for any suspicious activity concerning the former employee. In fact, your IT team should be entirely involved in the exit process to ensure that no stones are left unturned. Overall, most of these steps are fairly obvious, but some businesses fail to follow through with them for a number of reasons. Some don’t have the resources, while others might simply forget one or two key steps when letting an employee go. Whatever your reason, SRS Networks can assist your team by providing the handiwork necessary to […]
According to Processor magazine, a solid 30 percent of all powered-on servers aren’t working to their maximum potential. In fact, support servers average only about a 12 to 18 percent utilization rate. This means that there are a ton of servers out there that are costing businesses money on unnecessary expenses. It’s basically like wasted money, especially when you consider that many businesses use several dedicated servers for email, file hosting, and more. The reasoning behind this is that the servers can function independently from one-another, but the reality of the situation is that servers use a ton of energy; energy that’s wasted if not taken advantage of properly. The Benefits There are many benefits to consolidating your server infrastructure. Performing a close analysis of your organization’s server infrastructure is imperative to cutting unnecessary costs and optimizing your bottom line. Here are some of the great ways your company can benefit from elimination of underutilized or unused servers. Dramatic decrease in energy costs. With less machines online at all times, you can save money on operational costs, maintenance, and energy. Servers eat up a ton of electricity, so it’s natural that you do whatever you can to limit how much you use. Furthermore, maintenance is significantly less expensive if you only have one machine that needs updating, rather than four. Simplified computing infrastructure. Instead of having all of your technology spread across multiple pieces of hardware, you only need a minimal number of machines operating at all times. This makes it much easier to maintain and manage all of your mission-critical technology from one central location. More physical space for activities and other technology. Regardless of how many servers you’re able to eliminate, you’ll be saving valuable space that can be used for other, more productive things. For instance, you can use the freed space for storage. You’ll finally be able to get rid of that fax machine that’s been collecting dust on your desk. If you’re unsure how many of your servers are underutilized, or if you need help identifying where you can shave off some IT costs, SRS Networks can perform an obligation-free IT network assessment, where we take into account all aspects of your infrastructure; servers included. Furthermore, we can help your organization cut down on costs by taking advantage of virtual servers. When you virtualize a server, you’re eliminating the costs of running an additional physical machine, allowing one piece of hardware to perform the tasks of many. This lets you reap the benefits of multiple servers while only worrying about handling one of them. For more information on how we can help your organization transcend the limitations of hardware and optimize operations, give us a call at (831) 758-3636.
Better yet, it’s super easy to setup multi-factor authentication of your Office 365 account, and all accounts associated with your company. Follow these steps and you’ll be done before you know it. First, you’ll want to log into the Office 365 Portal with your administrator credentials. Then, click on the users and groups tab. From here, go to the Setup link, located to the right of Set Multi-factor authentication requirements. This will show a display featuring all of the usernames associated with your Office 365 account. Select the box to the left of the user that you’ll be applying multi-factor authentication to. Then, go to the information box to the right of the user and select Enable, located under quick steps. A box should open called About enabling multi-factor auth. Make sure you check out these links if you need more information concerning multi-factor authentication. When you’re ready to proceed, all you have to do is click enable multi-factor auth. Office 365 will inform you that your settings have been applied. You can click close to end the process. Now that you’ve finished the setup process for multi-factor authentication in the administrator settings, users will be asked to make certain changes to their accounts the next time they log in. After the initial login process, a user will need to verify their identity and set up multi-factor authentication on the user-end. The user will be required to select which MFA method they prefer, like their mobile phone number, so they can receive a call or SMS messages from Microsoft. After entering the preferred phone number, click verify. Next, Microsoft will contact your phone with a unique code that you will enter in order to verify the number. Depending on if you’re using a browser-based MFA setup, you may be asked to change your password too (it’s a best practice to regularly adopt new passwords). After creating and implementing a new password, multi-factor authentication will be set up for all the Office 365 accounts that you desire to have an extra layer of protection for. For more information about multi-factor authentication, and how you can take advantage of similar services for all of your online accounts, give SRS Networks a call at (831) 758-3636.
The Next Generation of Wireless Communications When we say 4G, we’re talking about the fourth generation of wireless technology solutions. Thus, the first generation of wireless technologies, 1G, would be the primitive cell phones from the 1980s, and each generation sees an increase in the power and mobility of wireless devices. 2G was a step up from 1G, making all transmissions digital rather than through analog, 3G was a further improvement to the wireless transfer of data, and 4G is the current technology. We’ll give you three guesses as to what comes next. You’ll be happy to hear that 5G will probably be the next step in enhancing wireless communications. However, it’s not necessarily “here” yet; in fact, it’s likely 5G won’t arrive for at least five years from now. The reasoning is that it’s not entirely clear at the moment how this type of wireless technology can be effectively delivered to the mobile device users of the world. Processor magazine says that researchers are looking into “what technical advances can achieve goals like minimum 100Mbps data rates, 45 b/s/Hz [bits per second per Hertz] spectral efficiency, 100Tbps per square kilometer density.” In other words, when we do actually get 5G, we can expect it to be pretty fast. The Next Generation of WiFi With so many new devices connecting to the Internet, it’s natural that networks grow more powerful to accommodate the increase in traffic. One standard that will see some improvement is the Wave 2 802.11ac, which is designed to handle multiple devices at the same time. It’s thought that this will become the most accessible type of connection available in the near future. In the next two years or so, we should expect to see improvements in the way wireless networks deliver quality service to users. As reported by Processor: Peter Crocker, founder and principal analyst at Smith’s Point Analytics, says “the reality is that Wi-Fi will be part of 5G, and it’s going to bring together a bunch of different transport technologies from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi to LTE and 3G, making all these things work together.” Regardless of how and why wireless technology is created, there’s no doubt that it’s shaping the way that the modern business functions. If you’re ready to take advantage of the numerous benefits that mobile technology can provide for your business, contact SRS Networks. We’ll assess your current wireless networks and identify points where you can improve its functionality. Give us a call at (831) 758-3636 to learn more.