Zinc Blog

Service offerings for business technology are kind of tricky to approach for administrators--especially if they have gotten by just fine without implementing new technology for the past few years. We want you to ask yourself if you are absolutely certain that the solutions aren’t needed by your business. You might find that you actually do need them.

I think by now most people understand just how dangerous ransomware is. Even with some of the ridiculous names they have like Gandcrab, Jigsaw, and WannaCry. Hell, two strains even have names from the James Bond canon: LeChiffre and GoldenEye. But one funny-named strain of ransomware, SamSam, has been devastating information systems for sometime, and has caught the eye of several U.S. law enforcement agencies.

The holiday season is coming to an end, which means it’s time to get back to the grind in the new year. However, if you happened to receive an Android device as a gift (or maybe treated yourself to one, I’m not judging), you can leverage it to make work a little easier. We’ll give you a few tips how.

We’ve always been a proponent of preparing for the worst and hoping for the best where a business’ solutions are concerned. That’s why we were happy to receive an email from our friends at the North Pole telling us about a situation they ran into just a few days ago...

We all know someone that has to have the latest and greatest technology. They have all of the gaming platforms, they have to get the newest smartphones every year, and they are the only person you know that owns multiple smartwatches. Clearly, some gizmo or gadget would make a great gift, but there’s still the age-old concern: what do you get for someone who seems to have everything?

Shortcuts are one of the key parts of using a computer these days, and when properly used, they can make your experience with the device much, much more convenient. You can be more productive throughout the workday and be more effective at completing tasks, all thanks to shortcuts. There are four in particular that can help you be a better computer user.

Smartphones are some of the most important pieces of technology on the open market. In fact, more computing is done today with just a device that can fit in your pocket than was ever done when all there was were PCs. For this reason, people are buying smartphones that are priced much like high-end PCs. Manufacturers have responded to this demand by upgrading their devices every year.

Mobile devices are great tools that allow for enhanced mobility and convenience, but this increased accessibility is also a major detriment in terms of data security. Mobile devices are notorious for being considerable security threats to businesses that utilize them. Therefore, businesses that use mobile devices on a regular basis should absolutely be aware of how they can influence security policies.

Certifications are extremely helpful on both a personal and professional level, and it can make all the difference in securing customers or clients. Your staff can become Microsoft Office Specialists on Microsoft Office 2016, and in doing so, will improve their own value and self-worth in the process.

There is no denying that a Google account is a very valuable thing to have today, and if valuable doesn’t seem like the right word to use, let’s say practical. Business and casual users alike use the wide variety of services for many purposes - but are they doing so safely?

Ready or not, the season of giving is here, and that means it’s gift card season. These can seem to be the perfect gift for coworkers and employees… which is why everyone will need to be wary of a particular business email compromise scam that has seen an uptick this year.

Of all reasons that a business doesn’t leverage IT, the one that makes the least sense to me has to be their size. There’s just a reluctance to adopt more than what - for whatever reason - is “enough” for a business of their capacity.

While some things may last forever (or at least seem to), your business’ technology certainly isn’t one of them. Moreover, when your solutions do reach their end-of-life (EOL), it is crucial that they are upgraded and/or replaced so that you can avoid negative consequences for your business.

As technology advances and improves at an exponential rate, it is little wonder that today’s youth are growing up with a closer relationship to technology than any other generation before them. While this has opened up many beneficial opportunities for them, it can also be the source of many serious issues without the proper supervision.

A backup is a critical consideration for any business, in more ways than one. We have a tendency to immediately jump to “business-ending disaster” whenever we mention a backup. However, we’ve realized that this may have the unfortunate side effect of lulling you into a false sense of complacency - after all, what are the chances of being struck by a “business-ending disaster?”

Wouldn’t it be great if your business could get the support it needs without having to ask a provider to travel to your office? With remote monitoring and management tools, we can help your business stay focused on the task at hand, improving productivity and efficiency without disrupting your operations with an on-site visit.

I think we’ve made it pretty clear that your organization needs to back up its data. We’re continuously explaining that if you don’t back up your data, and have a plan to get it back quickly, you are really testing the foundations of your business. After all, in today’s business climate, data is a very big deal.

Microsoft OneNote is a very useful application for, as you may have guessed, taking notes. However, when we say taking notes, we feel as though we’re not doing the application justice. We’ll share a few tips to help you use OneNote to its full potential.

How much does your business rely on technology? Chances are that there is at least one solution your business can’t get by without--and where there is a technology solution, you can bet there will be users who need help with it. We’ll discuss how a help desk solution can help your business avoid downtime and general technology problems.

Cloud-based applications are everywhere. For those of you who are not familiar with the cloud, or applications hosted on that type of infrastructure, today we will give a bit of a primer of how it all works.