Directive Blogs

Your server is an integral part of your IT setup, which means that it is all the more crucial that it is managed properly. As the central hub of your network, it connects all of the devices that you rely on to each other, allowing them to interact and communicate. Under proper server management practices, your server will be more able to accomplish this task.

In order to better understand how to properly approach server management, it helps to look at it not as an entire process, but to break it into its two parts.

Today is National Cancer Survivors Day, an annual event that is meant to focus on the successes in the fight against cancer. The idea behind this day is to provide living proof that there is life after a cancer diagnosis, as well as examples of hope for those who were diagnosed recently. Like so many other organizations, we are lucky enough to have one of our team still with us after a diagnosis of her own.

When it comes to a business being successful, it’s only natural to eliminate any wasted expenses and focus on those that can serve multiple purposes. Many businesses are very good at doing this, but they overlook a great opportunity to cut costs through the consolidation of their telephony system.

Social media is a phenomenon that has invaded the business world in more ways than one. While it might be a great way to endorse your brand and communicate with your local prospects, it can be a huge distraction for your in-house workers. A new study by communications agency, We Are Flint, claims that 84 percent of adults in the UK use social media, and two-thirds of them use it every day--be it at the office or at home.

Is there any good reason to use desktops in your office? While many businesses still utilize workstations, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the advantages afforded by mobile technology should make desktops obsolete, especially in light of a recent study.

In the business world, you rely on agile and secure access to critical documents on a number of different devices. However, security can quickly become a problem, especially when your users have multiple devices. Is your file sharing service enough to keep your data safe? Or, if it’s not, what are you going to do about it?

If your job is running a business, it’s pretty likely that making time to fully compare and understand every piece of business technology just isn’t in the cards. Even if you are pretty comfortable around computers and networking equipment, there are a lot of solutions out there, each with a big list of pros and cons. Finding exactly what you need can be challenging, time consuming, and cost you a lot of time and money if it doesn’t quite fit in with what you already have in place.

Veterans to building and running small and medium-sized businesses probably know about the huge initial start-up costs.  A small business needs to consider investing in all of the necessary infrastructure, from things like desks, chairs, computer equipment, security devices, break room appliances, heat, air conditioning, a website, marketing materials… the list goes on.  Today, small businesses are finding new ways to streamline and reduce the costs of getting started.  Hit the jump to see a few ways small businesses are cutting high start-up costs.

Let’s take a break from all of this technical mumbo-jumbo and talk about something that is much more important: health. You could have an arsenal of the world’s coolest gadgets and technology in front of you, but if you aren’t practicing good health habits, they won’t do you a lot of good for very long. Normally when we think of injuries, we think of doing something that pushes our body’s limits. Injuries can occur just from practicing poor habits during those 8-hour daily work marathons many of us run each day. I’ll go over a few simple ways you can optimize the ergonomics of your work environment to improve comfort and prevent physical stress associated with bad habits often found in the workplace.

In a world where we are always connected, always wired into the system, it's incredible to think how much information about us is being broadcasted into the void.  Everyone's doing it; Taco Bell wants you to call them toll free to chat about your experience, Facebook wants your full name, as opposed to a fake screen name, Microsoft wants to gather information about your computer every time something crashes.  Is our privacy really being invaded?  We'll talk about privacy, and the popular Palm Pre phone that seems to be taking Data Collection too far.