Catharsis Managed IT Ltd blog

Data security isn’t the easiest thing in the world to plan for, especially if your organization doesn’t have any dedicated security professionals on-hand. While protecting your data with traditional methods, like passwords, firewalls, and antivirus, is important, what measures are you taking to make sure a thief or hacker isn’t just walking into your office and making off with your technology?

Voice over Internet Protocol, also known as VoIP, has grown more popular with businesses in recent years, and it’s hard not to see why. The sheer amount of benefits that it provides to businesses--small organizations in particular--make your traditional telephone system look outdated and inefficient. We’ll discuss some of the greatest benefits today.

Let’s face it; the office isn’t the most engaging place at all times. Repetitive tasks can make attention to detail difficult to maintain. While this might throw a wrench into operational plans, it’s not the end of the world. A major threat like ransomware, on the other hand, could be a business-ender. When a lack of engagement meets security issues, you create a whole other monster that could strike your business when you least expect it.

By-in-large, most of today’s businesses are doing more to move away from their reliance on printed material. That’s not to say that nearly every business still requires the use of at least one printer. Most people believe that when your “ink” is low in your printer, the quality of the print job will suffer. This is true for inkjet printers, but for those that have laser printers, the “ink” isn’t really ink at all, it is a thing called toner. For this week’s technology basics article we will define what print toner is and how it differs from ink.

Antivirus is a crucial component to any network security platform, but do you know how it works? Below, we’ll go over how your security is improved by an antivirus solution.

Your business, like all businesses, relies on a lot of moving parts to function. That’s the reality. What isn’t the reality is that you have no control over whether these moving parts will break down, and that you have to just sit and wait for it to happen, reacting when it does.

The business world is inherently somewhat Darwinian: instead of organisms with desirable traits surviving and carrying on, better businesses tend to outlast those that are inferior. In order to keep on, you need to ensure that your business has the tools it needs to be better than the alternative. Part of this is a great staff, yes, but for today’s tip, we’ll discuss how optimizing your technology can help.

While you may not consider it at first, your mobile device has a sizeable amount of personally identifiable data on it - far more than should be left on an unsecured phone at any time. Fortunately, Google has added a considerable layer of protections to Android to assist users with their security. All a user has to do is know how to use them to their fullest potential.

Did you know that almost 90 percent of small business owners feel they are completely safe from attack? It’s unfortunate, but the truth of the matter is that half of these businesses will eventually be proven wrong--they too can suffer from a cyberattack. Are you going to risk becoming one of them? You should know now that there is no reason to.

Navigating some websites can be a pain, but thankfully, there is a handy-dandy tool that just about all of them utilize to make it easier for users. We’re talking, of course, about the navigation bar. We’ll discuss what the navigation bar is, what it does, and why it’s so helpful for a website or application’s end user.

The Internet is incredibly important to the success of not only businesses, but countless users all over the world. In terms of the actual strength of the Internet though, people might not know just how many options there are out there that can provide access to this dynamic and feature-filled network. Thanks to the Internet, businesses all over the world have access to plenty of great services that enable them to accomplish as much as possible.

Technology support is critical to the success of businesses, but investing in these solutions presents an entirely different problem--whether or not your business can afford an in-house support team. Depending on the budget, businesses often find themselves investing in IT support that’s both counter-productive and costly. We’re here to tell you that remote support and a help desk solution can mitigate costs and help you achieve a higher return on your investment.

Businesses of all types have looked to the cloud as a way to receive the goods and services they could use to improve their ability to create revenue, while not having to lay out huge chunks of capital in which to get the dynamic computing infrastructure. Today, developers are creating useful cloud-based applications that not only provide growing businesses the resources they need, they increasingly give workers flexibility, through their inherent accessibility. Today, we will take a look at five cloud-based applications that can really benefit a small business.

It’s clear that your business’ profession was chosen based on a specific lack or need in your area, but if you don’t have the technology to make sure this need can be met, you’re not providing value to your clients. This is one of the key reasons why businesses like us offer remote monitoring and management services to organizations like yours.

While email remains an important facet of professional business communications, the instant message is of rising importance in office environments everywhere. While any one of many factors may contribute to this shift, it provides those businesses that adopt it great advantages to their internal processes, and might even aid in their cybersecurity.

Microsoft Office 365 might look like Microsoft Office, but it has many other features that allow you to make your documents and services more accessible and collaborative than the standard desktop application would. This week’s tip is dedicated to helping you get the most out of the features of Office 365--particularly in regard to Microsoft Word.

Using a mobile device to browse the Internet has its perks, but one of the biggest ones is that you have so many options for browsers. If you’re having trouble selecting one for your needs, it’s generally best to stick with ones that you’ve used in the past. Here are a couple of options you have for mobile browsing.

While being tech-savvy is much more commonplace than it used to be, asking a question about IT can still make one a bit nervous. This leads to many who are somewhat unlearned in technology feeling that they will be mocked for asking “dumb” questions. Well, fear not--we’ll explain some of the more common questions you might want to ask about technology.

There is a special kind of frustration that comes from a slow computer. We think it’s a combination of being unable to get something done combined with your computer’s inability to take a hint and register your frustration as you furiously click your mouse. Either way, slow computers are annoying. Fortunately, there are some steps you can take to speed things up before you consider throwing it out a window.

We have no problem going on the record as saying that there are more than enough strains of malware to go around. As such, it’s important that you know what to do if your workstation is struck by an infection.