Directive Blogs

Take a look, a good hard look, at your employees. They are working diligently, right? You've staffed the company with some quality A-players and everyone has taken responsibility for their work. You see good communication, organization, and dare we say motivation emanating from each member of your well-armed team. Or maybe you don't and the company is working on improving that - we understand. We also understand that while an employee might be a rockstar at their job, they could still pose a risk to IT.

Did you know? Microsoft reported in May that every one in 14 downloads from the Internet may now contain malware code. Keeping your business protected is extremely important. Fortunately there are plenty of tools out there that do most of the protecting for you, but these tools need to be managed and kept up to date.

Email is (and has been) a prime method of communication for businesses of all sizes. With email comes a whole slew of issues that are essentially synonymous with the technology; spam, information overload, phishing, and information privacy. Even Upstate New York small businesses that only do business locally are at risk of these issues. Personal email accounts are equally at risk. Employing proper precautions and practices whenever communicating via email is very important to prevent the risk of security compromises, monetary loss, and even legality issues.

Controlling and managing a big network with multiple servers is no small endeavor, especially keeping them maintained. On top of that, software licenses, warranties, user permissions, and security all need to be managed and controlled. As your business expands, you may need more servers in order to perform certain tasks ranging from email, file distribution, specialized software, and security management of various levels. Pretty soon your server room is beginning to look like a cramped mini data center and you need to worry about controlling the heat and maintaining multiple high-priority, mission critical machines. There's got to be a better way, right?

Still haven't found all the right gifts for this holiday season? You are on your own there - but we CAN help ensure a safe online shopping experience. Internet shopping has become widely popular over the years, and this year retailers have seen a big increase in mobile transactions as well. Consumers can skip the lines and the crowds and save a lot of cash in the process. Online shopping is generally safe, although there are a few tips you'll want to be aware of before going virtual shopping this holiday season.