Zinc Blog

Have you ever heard someone refer to an activity as “yak shaving?” Also known as “bikeshedding,” this is effectively a way to describe a specific kind of procrastination. For this week’s tip, we’ll explore how a freshly barbered yak relates to your business’ productivity, and how to keep you and your employees on the right track.

It is not unusual for the business that has been in business for a while to have used a number of software titles that either are completely ineffective, or are known to be security risks. The use of cheap, or free, software is prevalent among individuals and organizations that don’t realize that it pays to have a software strategy in place. For this week’s tip, we’ll talk about software and how something so crucial to the success or failure of a business needs to be taken seriously.

Communications can be difficult to manage, especially in today’s business world where workers are more mobile with more devices than ever before. How can you make sure your business’ infrastructure is prepared for the new developments in modern technology solutions? You can start by making sure your team is equipped with the applications and devices they need to stay in touch during the workday.

Some documents contain more sensitive data on them than others, making them important to protect. When it won’t do to have documents containing boatloads of sensitive data available to anyone who obtains the document, you can turn to Microsoft Word to have a feature that protects them: password protection.

A company’s wireless network is a big part of what they do. Not only does it provide the freedom for people to move around, it also spurs on collaboration, enhances coordination, and provides more availability for people to be productive. Problems abound with many organizations’ Wi-Fi strategy, however. If your business doesn't take proactive measures to properly manage your wireless connections, they may not be as effective or secure as you need them to be. Today, we’ll give you a few tips to make your wireless platform strong and resilient.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.

Did you know that switching from the keyboard to the mouse can eat up a full 8 work days worth of time per year?

An IT provider can do a lot for your business, but it can exceed your organization’s expectations in more ways than one. A growing business, however, often runs into issues that need to be addressed regarding its technology. We’ll outline some of the major benefits that technology management from an IT provider can offer for a growing business.

Spreadsheets are great for organizing information, but they aren’t particularly interesting to look at--especially if you aren’t using Microsoft Excel to the best of your ability. Today’s tip is dedicated to going over some of the more obscure Microsoft Excel tips and tricks that will help you stylize your spreadsheets and make them more dynamic.

The basics are called “the basics” because they are the information you need to know first before you can get a genuine understanding of any concept. In many ways, the basics of network security are extremely important and cannot be ignored. Here are five basic ways you can keep your devices as secure as possible.

Microsoft has consistently turned out collaboration software of all kinds, but some are more effective than others. We’ll try to single out some of the best and brightest solutions for collaboration in the business world.

With smartphones being so well suited to productivity and on-the-go organization, it’s little wonder that they have become a great tool for note-taking. One application in particular, Evernote, was designed with many features focused toward this very task. For this week’s tip, we’ll review some of the reasons that Evernote is a stand-out note-taking tool.

The cloud has transformed the way people work; and, as a result people rely on it for more than ever. Some businesses have all their computing resources in the cloud, while many others utilize it for software as a service, communication tools, and other major parts of their business’ IT. The more businesses start relying on cloud-hosted computing resources, the more these cloud resources are being wasted. Since they come at a premium price, businesses are beginning to discover that they are wasting money on their cloud.

If you need to make something very clear about a document, adding a watermark to it is an excellent route to take. Microsoft Word 2016 (if you have Office 365, this applies too) makes it especially easy to do so. For this week’s tip, we’ll review the process of adding a watermark to your Word documents.

Your Windows computer has all kinds of different settings that let it connect to different networks. While this might not seem like major difference, it could have a drastic effect on your organization’s cybersecurity. This week’s tip is dedicated to helping you make sure that your network profile is as secure as possible.