Cloud computing

Humans are generally visual creatures. We need to see something to believe it, or be able to digest and use it. For most companies wanting to gauge their performance and success, they need to analyze existing data. The problem is, data by itself is useless. It only becomes useful once it's collected and analyzed and presented in a way we can understand. For many businesses this is done through the use of dashboards.

A dashboard is an easy to read and comprehend representation of data that indicates the current status of a company. Most dashboards look at a company's Key Performance Indicators (KPI), and display information graphically, and more often than not in real-time. This study of performance is often referred to as analytics, and companies can use KPIs, and the dashboards that represent them, to predict, describe and even change performance.

Dashboards have become an integral part of any analytics process, and can really help a business. However, they need to be implemented properly if a business is to benefit. Here's five tips that can help you launch useful dashboards.

1. Focus on the important Dashboards allow you to track almost any form of data. This doesn't mean you should, however. In fact, it's a good idea to step back and identify the most important, or most integral processes of your business. You could start with two or three of these that you can clearly track from beginning to end.

2. Do your tech due diligence The number of programs and full solutions that offer small businesses dashboards are plentiful. You should think about what exactly you want to track and your overall goals before you talk to a vendor.

With the information and metrics identified, you should look for a solution that allows you to track these to the level you want. If you're only being offered once a week views, for example, and you need updates once a day, you're better off continuing your search.

Beyond this, you should be careful to look at the options each dashboard has, and the information it follows. You don't want to be tracking information you don't need, as this could throw off the effectiveness of the solution.

3. One solution won't fit all It's important to bear in mind that different departments or roles will want to track different information. You should include the different team wants, along with their representatives, when looking at solutions, so you can get a better picture as to what you need.

4. Benchmarks Once you have set your goals or objectives and before you implement your new dashboard, it is a good idea to track any related information. This should give you a solid idea from which you can compare changes once the dashboard is implemented.

This pre-system tracking doesn't have to be long, maybe three to six months - enough time to give you a solid grasp of what you want to look at. After implementation, track the same data for six months and look again. Any changes will become the new benchmark which will allow you to launch new solutions, or gauge effectiveness of the data you are collecting.

5. Back up your data As with any tech system, all dashboard software will have the occasional bug or glitch. It simply cannot be avoided. Developers and vendors know this and many have backup solutions to ensure data loss is minimized. It is a good idea to consult with them to ensure their backup meets your needs, or look for one who can work with existing technology to ensure data won't be lost.

Tracking data and information that is critical to a business's operations can help you gain not only a clear picture of just how well your company is doing, but also highlight any need for changes or improvements. If you would like to find the right dashboards for your business, please contact us, we may have a solution that will drive your success.

Computers and the software we use have been instrumental in enabling businesses to reach previously unseen and unattainable levels of productivity. While many programs are a major part of any computer, only a handful have been integrated in nearly every business. One such program is Microsoft Office, and it's word processor Word. There are many productivity enhancing features of Word, including copy and paste.

Here's an overview of Word's copy and paste feature.

Simple copy and paste As you likely know already, you can copy by selecting/highlighting text, or pictures and either right-clicking and selecting copy; pressing Ctrl + C (Command + C on Mac) or selecting File followed by Copy.

You can paste by either right-clicking and selecting paste; pressing Ctrl + V (Command + V on Mac) or selecting File followed by Paste. When you copy and paste, the highlighted text or image will be placed where you have placed the cursor.

While simple copying and pasting works fine for most situations, there are times when you are copying from one word document to another and need something else. Many documents have different text and layout formats which can make copying a bit inefficient, as you will likely have to change some of the text or image settings. Word has four built-in features that can make this easier.

These settings can be found by first highlighting what you would like to copy. You should see a clipboard above the highlighted text when you hover your mouse over it. Pressing the down-facing black arrow will open the different copy functions.

• Keep Source Formatting - Pressing this will keep the formatting of the text/document you copied from. This is the default option.
• Merge Formatting - This will keep the text's format, without changing the format of the document you paste into. E.g., if the text you copied is a different font and size, it will be posted into the new document at the same format, but the next word typed will retain the previous format.
• Use Destination Style - This will change the text you copied to the same format as the document you copy into.
• Keep Text Only - This will copy only the text. All graphics, tables, charts and formatting will be discarded. When you paste into the new document, the text will be changed to that document's formatting.

This feature can help make it easier to copy and paste from one document to another. Office has many features that can assist in improving your productivity, or make your job easier. If you are interested in learning more Office tips and tricks, please contact us today.

The number of tech gadgets we own has been growing, as has the number of criminals targeting high value goods like laptops and smartphones. While it is more likely to not happen, there is still a chance your laptop or phone could be stolen or go missing. When it does, you could lose important data, especially if you use this for your work too. To help increase the chances of finding your device you can install a program that tracks it.

Prey is an Open Source - free - program that you can install on your computer or mobile device and track it when it's missing, or been stolen.

How it works First you have to download the software - from here - onto your computer (Windows, Mac or Linux are supported), and sign up for an account. You have a couple of options here: You can either sign up for an account with Prey and access a control panel through the website, or install it as a standalone which is recommended for advanced users as it requires some server configuration.

If you chose to go with the Web option you sign up for an account and install the software then register your main device along with extra ones like an Android, or your iOS device. Once you have downloaded Prey and linked them together, you are ready.

When your device is lost, you log into the Web Control Panel on Prey's site and can report it as missing. You can also turn on different actions which allow you to track the computer's location, network status and hardware usage. There are also other options like the ability to snap a picture using the webcam (if you have one), or even sound an alarm. You can even lock the system or phone ensuring people can't access it.

For mobiles, you can send these a text (from the Web Control Panel) which will initiate the established options you have pre-set for when your phone goes missing.

How Prey finds your device's location depends on the device. For laptops, it can turn-on your Wi-Fi connection and try to connect to the nearest access points. It can take the IP address of each Wi-Fi access point and from there get an approximate location - in some areas as close as 200 feet. On your phone, it turns on the GPS (if available) and tries to connect to Wi-Fi networks in range. These two combined can generate a fairly accurate location.

All this tracking information is sent to your inbox in the form of a report, which can be tailored to meet your needs.

What makes this program different from other similar ones is that it can be installed across multiple platforms and managed from one account. It's also free, which makes it even more attractive. There is also a Pro version which allows you to track more devices, for a monthly fee (USD$5 for 3 devices up to USD$399 a month for 500 devices).

Prey is just one of the many device tracking programs, and installing one may be a good idea, to give you a greater chance of retrieval if your phone or computer is lost or stolen. Do you use one already? If so, which one? If you would like to learn more about Prey and the other device tracking programs please let us know, we may have a great solution for you.

One of the major objectives of almost every business is to remain operational. From time-to-time there might be factors, such as a natural disaster, that could put your company at risk. To mitigate this threat, companies have started to adopt a Business Continuity Plan with the aim of being able to recover from such disastrous events.

While a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) can be complicated, and comprised of many different objectives, the main reason companies include this in their business strategy is to build up resilience. Disasters of many kinds can result in either lost data, sales or even business. While a BCP won't prevent large-scale disasters, it will help your business recover quicker.

When looking at how resilient your business is, there are three main aspects to consider.

RTO RTO stands for Recovery Time Objective and is the time period from the beginning of the disaster to recovery of operations. This number, or time period, will be different for every company. For example, companies that operate online stores will likely have a short RTO, as they rely on 24/7 uptime to conduct business and sales.

In general the RTO is an objective, one that employees and stakeholders should strive for. Having one can help planners identify potential problem areas along with critical functions that must be recovered and any preparations that will be necessary. If a business does not address, or identify a set time to recovery they could see an unnecessary increase in recovery times, or worse lost profits.

RPO RPO stands for Recovery Point Objective and represents the amount of data a business is willing, or can afford, to lose. The easiest way to figure this out is to look at your systems and think about how much data or information you personally can lose before being unable to do your job. From there, you can work out the frequency with which you should back up your systems.

For example: If you figure that you can lose a day's worth of data, then your backup should be done on a daily basis. If you currently back up your data or systems once a week, and figure you can only miss a day, then RPO helps you realize this is not enough and that you need a system or plan that better meets your needs.

The difference between RTO and RPO is that RTO is a broad process that covers the whole Business Continuity timeline, while RPO is focused on data and backup.

ROI When looking at different Business Continuity systems, it is always a good idea to calculate the ROI, or Return on Investment. You can calculate the cost of the integrating any plan, time to implement and recovery, expected value it can bring your business and avoided losses. This will give you a pretty good picture on whether current systems are strong enough, and if new alternatives are better.

By figuring out the time you expect to recover, how often you should back up and the total ROI of proposed, or existing, systems you can gain a clearer picture of how resilient your company is.

If you're looking to make your company a little more resilient, why not get in touch with us? We are happy to sit down and discuss your options with you.

Social media has become a large part of both individual users' lives and company business. These platforms allow us to communicate with ease, while sharing information, and generally creating an interactive community. As with any group, security is an issue. We expect to be secure, but there are times when the security of your information could be breached.

It only took one month for the first major security breach of a social network, and this time it happened to Twitter. On the first of February, Twitter announced on their blog that slightly over 250,000 accounts had been compromised.

At this time, Twitter doesn't know who is responsible for the attack but according to the blog post they know that, "The attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords."

Yes, the hackers did get access to passwords, although the company noted that they got the 'encrypted/salted' versions, this means they didn't actually get the passwords themselves. To get the account passwords they would have to decrypt the information first, something many hacker's don't bother with.

What does this mean for my company? If you or your company has a Twitter account, you would have already have received an email if your account was breached. While 250,000 sounds like a high number, keep in mind that there are over 72 million active accounts (users who post more than once a week).

While this is a drop in the proverbial bucket, it's still a security threat that you should act upon. At the very least you should take steps to change your password. You can do this by logging into Twitter and pressing the cog in the top right of the tool bar. Select Settings followed by Password. Enter your current password, followed by a new password and verify it. Press Save changes and you are done.

It is a good idea to pick a completely new password, one with numbers, letters and if possible special characters like !, $ or ^. At the very least, it should be different from any other passwords you use.

Looking to learn more about the security breach or if Twitter is right for your business? Give us a shout, we'd be happy to talk social media with you.

The Internet has brought many changes to both companies and the people that use it. One of the more popular Internet based services is social media. Almost everyone with an Internet connection has a presence on at least one site, companies included. While most companies use social media for marketing, and connecting with customers, they can also use it to learn more about potential new hires.

Here's three steps you can employ to learn a bit more about potential hires before they come in for an interview.

1. Google them Googling yourself can be seen as vain, however putting a potential hires name into Google Search is smart. You can enter their name along with specific queries that can help you narrow information down. One thing you can do is enter their name with double quotes around it and the city they are based in, this will help you find their presence on related social media sites. You can also put their area code, zip or postal code to narrow down the search.

The point of this is to help you find more information about the person without having to search on individual social media sites. This will also return results like photo albums, recent account activity and maybe even some hobbies and interest groups. Searching on Google, or other search engines is a good way to see if the prospective employee is legitimate.

2. Take a look on Facebook Almost everyone and their dog are on Facebook, so don't forget to search for them on this popular service. With the recently announced Graph Search, this should make searching a lot easier too. Enter their name, along with some specific interests or information from the resume and the chances of finding this person's profile go up.

While some would argue the ethics of doing this, you may see information or posts that counter information in the resume, or even paint a better picture of the applicant. For example, you can ask them about their family when they come in for an interview. It could prove to be a great ice breaker.

3. LinkedIn Most social media sites focus on the social aspect of people's lives, while LinkedIn focuses on the more career and professional oriented areas. Searching for the candidate on LinkedIn can often shed more light on their history, and may even showcase common links between you and them. If you notice that the candidate worked for a previous employee, you could contact that employee to see if they have any thoughts about the candidate.

Researching your future hires is a good idea because it can help you learn more about them than you might otherwise do from just an interview. It also gives you a bit of a deeper understanding of if they would be a good fit for the company. If you would like to learn more about how you can leverage social media in your company please contact us today.

The security of a company's networks and devices is a common issue many managers and owners face. There are a near constant stream of new threats brought to light, some of which are more important than others. The majority of the time these threats are to the software, but a recent one is hardware based and puts millions of systems at risk.

At the end of January, numerous news and tech media services issued warnings about UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) enabled devices. This was taken to be a big issue because of the widespread adoption of these devices and the fact that many of them have little to no security measures, which could open whole systems to attacks. Many business owners and managers are wondering what exactly is UPnP and how it can open systems to attack.

UPnP defined UPnP is a protocol or code that allows networked devices like laptops, computers, Wi-Fi routers, and many modern mobile devices, to search for and discover other devices connected to, or wanting to connect to, the same network. This protocol also allows these devices to connect to one-another and share information, Internet connection and media.

A good example of UPnP in use is your laptop. When you first connect your laptop to your router, you likely have to enter a password and maybe even the router's network name. Without UPnP you would have to find the network and enter the password each time you want to connect to the Internet. With UPnP, your laptop can automatically connect whenever it's in range.

Why is UPnP a security threat? UPnP has been in use for the better part of seven years and has since come to be found in nearly every device that connects to the Internet - pretty much everything. While it was written for devices in the home e.g., Wi-Fi routers, many businesses also use these devices because they are often easier to set up and cost less than their enterprise counterparts.

Because of the sheer number of devices that use this protocol, and the fact that it's engineered to respond to any request to connect to the device, it makes sense that this could be a security issue. A recent study tested the security of UPnP and revealed some interesting results.

Rapid7, the company that conducted the study, sent UPnP discovery requests to every routable IPv4 address. - IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) is a set of protocols for sending information from one computer to another on the Internet. A routable IPv4 address is one that can be contacted by anyone on the Internet. They found that over 80 million addresses used UPnP, and 17 million of these exposed the protocol that enables easy connection to the system or device. This can be easily exploited by hackers.

In other words, 17 million systems, many of which could be businesses, are open to attack through the UPnP device. This security threat opens networks to denial-of-service attacks which make resources, including the Internet, unavailable to the user. One example of a popular denial-of-service attack is a hacker making your website unavailable to others.

Can we do anything? Most experts are recommending that you disable UPnP on your networked devices. The first thing you should do however is to conduct a scan for vulnerable UPnP devices on your network. Tools like ScanNow (for Windows) can help you search. For many, this is a daunting prospect, as the chance of creating more issues is just too great.

We recommend contacting an expert like ourselves, who can conduct a security analysis and advise you on steps you can take to ensure you are secure. So, if you are worried about the security of your systems, give us a call today. We may have a solution for you.

Small to medium businesses are highly susceptible to increasing operational costs. An increase of only USD$1.00 for an essential item could be enough to force a company out of business. That's why many business owners are always on the search for ways to cut costs. One way which is often overlooked is reducing the costs associated with your printers.

Here's six ways to cut printing costs.

1. Print double sided - While printer paper isn't overly expensive - an average of USD$8 per ream (for 500 sheets of non-recycled, multipurpose paper) - many companies only print on one side. This really adds up over a year, especially if you have more than one printer or print large documents on a regular basis. To save money, set your printers to print on both sides of the page. This will cut down the amount of paper used and waste generated. Just be sure to put page numbers on the documents so readers know it's double sided.
2. Lower print quality - Most printers can print at various quality levels. Higher quality means it's easier to read, but uses more ink. If you are printing out memos or other inter office documents, you probably don't need high, or even medium quality. Low quality is still readable and will save you on ink costs.
3. Print in black - Ink is by far the highest cost of any printing job, and supplies always seems to deplete quickly. To save money set up your printers to only print using black ink, which is about 30% cheaper than color ink.
4. Implement print quotas - Nothing makes an environmentalist cringe more than seeing a 100-page PDF freshly printed, and lying in the recycle bin because someone accidentally printed the whole document instead of just one page. Not only is this bad for the environment, it's also bad for your costs. One way around this is to use quotas. Many new printers allow you to assign computers or people IDs which you can set limits on. This will encourage employees to think twice before printing.
5. Go paperless - With the introduction of cheap cloud storage and collaboration services, the paperless office has become mostly viable. Granted there are some aspects of business, like shipping waybills, receipts, payslips, etc., that must legally be printed, but you could move non-essential documents onto cloud storage. This is a great way to reduce printing costs, while simultaneously fostering a sharing and collaborative office environment.
6. Work with managed print services - If you find that printing costs are skyrocketing, why not work with a managed print services provider? The vast majority often charge a flat fee and will take care of your printers and often your ink too.

Unless you adopt massive changes e,g., completely getting rid of all printers, you won't see huge savings from reducing printing costs. However, every little bit counts towards the bottom line. If you're looking for a managed print services company or for more ways to reduce your IT costs, please contact us today.

The idea of big data is fairly new, but like almost every other big tech advancement, it's really taken off. Many popular tech sites and news outlets have focused on it in the past year and companies are enthusiastic to take advantage of it. Companies shouldn't be too eager however, as the idea and practice of big data is still unclear to many and could lead businesses to make costly mistakes.

A study published in mid 2012 by Harris Interactive looked at what exactly big data is. The research polled 154 companies, more than half of which were small businesses, on what they think the definition of big data is. The results? No one really agrees on a definition of big data.

The survey found that 24% of respondents believed it's the technology that allows the management of massive amounts of data, while 28% believed it's the idea of massive growth of transactional data. The survey concluded that nearly 80% of businesses identify big data as some form of opportunity in the near future.

Beware of big data hype This goes to show that businesses are aware of the trend, and may feel that they have to be a part of it to gain any sort of competitive advantage in the near future. However, this is the wrong way to look at big data. The fact of the matter is, while big data is here to stay, many small business simply don't have the resources - monetary, staffing, knowledge, or otherwise - to launch big data initiatives.

Don't not focus on data The amount of data available and being generated is growing at an exponential rate, and even small businesses are overwhelmed with often unintelligible data. The danger is that if you turn your back on data you might soon find yourself lagging well behind your competitors.

If big data and ignoring data are out, what's left? The middle road, or in this case, small data. Take a look at your business and identify and prioritize the most important data for your business. For example, a dentist is probably going to want to know how many patients are walk-ins or appointments. From here, you can analyze the data and begin to pick out trends, anomalies and weaknesses, etc. Taking the dentist example above, if data identifies that walk-ins are 10 times heavier on a Monday morning, it may be better business practice to have more staff on Monday mornings to better deal with customer flow.

Baby steps leads to big data The key is to start in a small and manageable way. Focus on understanding critical data by getting to know how to collect and analyze it. This will provide a platform from which you can launch bigger data initiatives in the future. Once you are comfortable, you can introduce more advanced dashboards to better utilize your data. If you do methodically, you should be aligned perfectly to take advantage of big data when it becomes viable for all businesses.

Interested in learning more about data in your organization? Contact us today to see how we can help you.