Directive Blogs

We have the pleasure of working with many businesses, some of whom take more advantage of our remote services than others. We wanted to take a few moments to discuss one of our more discreet client organizations and a challenge we helped them resolve. Hopefully, sharing this won’t land us on the naughty list.

While most of us know that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, fewer know that he’s specifically built his big, rambling castle in the Laughing Valley. It is there that he and his workforce, the elves, sprites, pixies, and fairies that help him make his toys all live, all working hard to give the children of the world their presents each year.

Of course, as magical as Santa and his team may be, it isn’t unheard of for them to need a little help every once in a while.

Did you know that tomorrow is World Password Day, 2023? As the result of a campaign to spread awareness of the importance of sufficiently secure passwords, it has become an annual reminder of how critical sufficient passwords are to proper cybersecurity…despite passwords not being sufficient protection on their own. In light of tomorrow’s observance, let’s take some time to review why passwords are important to get right, and what else you need to have in place.

Sustainability is a hot topic nowadays, from how we conduct ourselves in our personal lives to how businesses go about their respective business. If this is something that you want to promote in your business, we figured that the day before Earth Day was as good a day as any to share some of the ways you can do so.

The holidays are again upon us and if you are looking for the perfect gift for your favorite business professional, you don’t have to look too far. There are more consumer electronics available today than ever before, and most of them have some sort of novelty attached to them. We have made a list of four gifts that are not only cool, they serve a practical purpose and will probably avoid being re-gifted or recycled.

The holiday season is getting busier and busier every year and with less and less time afforded to shopping and getting ready for the holiday, you may have overlooked that special someone on your holiday shopping list. This week, we give you three gadgets that would be really nice last minute gifts for that technology lover in your life

Today is Global Recycling Day and is intended to remind us of all the materials that can be reused in everyday life, in part as a way to decrease our individual carbon footprint. However, it's valuable to know how much your business contributes in terms of its carbon footprint… and, once you know that figure, how you can reduce it.

The holiday season has a variety of famous key players, including the likes of Santa, Rudolph, and the rest of the North Pole crew. Each year, they use their magic to help spread goodwill and joy to all the nice children of the world… but did you know that they are also responsible for protecting those who make the naughty list from Santa’s villainous counterpart, Krampus?

As the official managed service provider for Santa’s operation, we have been cleared to share the story about how we’ve helped defy Krampus to save Christmas.

Each year we try to come up with a creative Christmas article that ties IT into one of the many holiday fables, but this year we thought we would just forgo the pageantry and talk a little bit about how important our clients are and what we do that can help take them where they want to go.

The holidays are some of the best times for technology lovers. Not only do manufacturers deliver the coolest tech for the busiest retail time of the year, there is a good chance that you may be gifted some of it. This week, we thought we would take a look at three popular gadgets that are flying off the shelves this holiday season. 

The holidays are times for people to come together, even in these incredibly stressful times, so you’ll want to make sure that you are taking all the necessary precautions on both a personal level and a technological level. Here are some ways that you can keep yourself safe from a technology perspective this holiday season.

With the holidays fast approaching, people are ready to go out and find the best, most perfect gifts for their loved ones. That said, people don’t want to spend their money frivolously; they want to find the best deals while they are available. We’ve compiled a list of some of the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals that have been announced so far.

The holiday season is well known as a time off from work to spend with family, but for some, it’s the busiest time of the year. Let’s get to know one such individual for a moment, and what he’s learning can make his job—and his life—much, much easier.

A full week into the new year, have you resolved to make any improvements to your business? In light of all the resolutions that may (or may not) have been broken by now, we decided to share a few resolutions you could put into place to improve your business and its processes.

Parker sat at his desk looking at a business card. He watched the snow fall lightly outside his window. He was the last person left in the office, as he typically was this time of year. He put down the business card and got up and walked over to the large pane of glass that was the only insulation from the harsh, cold wintery night. He placed his hand on the window and felt the bitter cold meet the palm of his hand. He stood there for a minute; maybe more than a minute. He began to cry. He was so angry at how things were going.

Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, the Star Spangled Banner… whatever you call it, the flag of the United States of America is a symbol of this country’s history and its current unity. As such, there are proper ways to handle it… and many, many ways for it to be mishandled. Here, we’ve taken the liberty of outlining the proper etiquette for handling the flag, and how to properly dispose of it if necessary.

The IT guy, Jacob left last month: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. He left without an exit interview, and he didn’t seem very pleased with the way the situation played out. You could never tell if Scrooge cared or not. His demands have never wavered. He expected perfection and when mistakes were made, they were approached as catastrophic affronts to the sustainability of the business, even if that wasn’t the reality.

With the holiday season in full swing, finding good gifts for the technology lover in your life may actually be more frustrating than you’d think. Since there are so many options, people will often get paralysis from trying to find the right gift and end up going the gift card route. Today we will look at five great gift ideas for the technology fan in your life.

We’re right in the thick of the holiday season, which means two things: one, there’s a lot of data being exchanged between businesses and consumers, and (on a related note) two: there’s ample opportunities for cybercrime, targeting business and consumer both. Whichever side of the coin you are on at any moment, you need to be aware of the risks, and how to mitigate them.

The holidays are a time filled with good food, visits from dear friends and family, and exchanging gifts with those you care about. However, to keep the season bright and merry, you need to be a little cautious during your next gift exchange, as many gifts can present some unexpected risks to your recipient’s security. Be mindful if you see the following items on someone’s wish list.

The holiday season has always been one of deep-seated traditions, some that draw from ancient customs, and some that are inspired by more contemporary trends. These traditions have been shaped, and often inspired by, the technology available in the day. Today, we’ll reflect on how the technologies we have now have impacted our celebratory traditions.

This Christmas, technology is everywhere. Traditionally, the holidays were a time when things slowed down for businesses and people spent time with their families and put their work on the back burner. Those days are over. Today’s professional is lucky to get a day off for Christmas; and, because of the way business works today, may be asked to do more than ever around the holidays.

Hackers always love the holiday season. Lots of people are spending lots of money (both online and in-store) for the perfect gifts for their loved ones. When there are so many people making purchases all over the world, there are countless opportunities to steal information. Data such as credit card numbers and personally identifiable information can be taken and used to make people’s lives pretty miserable, during what is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.

In terms of identity theft, data loss and good ol’ fashioned pickpocketing, the holiday season is one of the riskiest times to travel. When it comes to protecting your personal information, thieves and cybercriminals are counting on you to be distracted and make careless mistakes. In 2016, the number of fraud attempts went up by 31% during the holiday season. In addition, credit cards, mobile devices, and open Wi-Fi are common targets throughout the holidays.

The holidays are getting closer, and picking the right gift for someone is only becoming a more stressful activity. To make things a little easier for you, we’ve found some gadgets that might make the perfect gift for that person on your list who has a particular interest. This blog will go over some of these interests and the gifts that might make their holiday.

The perfect holiday gift needs to be something meaningful. Now, a meaningful gift could be something sentimental, or it could be useful. If you’re looking to give a gift that will get plenty of use throughout the year, then consider giving a video-streaming service subscription.

What’s scarier, monsters or computer viruses? While it would be horrifying to be caught in a dark alley with a vampire, it would also be terrifying to lose your data to a hacker. Each entity is scary in its own right, but how frightening would it be if the two were combined?

In 1977 the first Star Wars movie premiered, entitled “A New Hope.” The science-fiction film became a hit and spawned a franchise that’s still going strong 38 years later, with the upcoming release of its much-anticipated seventh feature film, “The Force Awakens.” In fact, Star Wars is such a big deal that it has its own holiday, celebrated every May 4th (May the 4th be with you).

With the long-awaited release of Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens this December, today’s Star Wars Day holiday may be the biggest yet (May the 4th be with you). As a technology-loving IT company, we’re happy to honor our favorite science fiction franchise by taking a fun look at its futuristic space technology.

Even if you like Internet Explorer, you may have noticed that it can be a bit buggy at times. Perhaps if Microsoft had more information about the causes of its software issues, they could develop a better product. This is the purpose of software error reports, which largely go unsent and unread; or at least, that’s what Microsoft thought.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that cat memes infest the Internet to the point where it’s difficult to not see one. But, have you considered that it might not be that people are obsessed with cats, and that maybe the cats are simply overwhelmed by their ego as a superior race? Perhaps cats understand technology far better than even humans do, and they are the masterminds behind why the Internet has gone cat-crazy.

2015 isn’t the year to go without backups. If there’s anything 2014 showed the world, it’s that businesses can fall victim to data breaches when they least expect it. You want to be prepared in the event of a data breach or data loss, and the easiest way to do that is by taking advantage of an external backup. Unfortunately, even an essential solution like data backup can be forgotten amidst the everyday operations of the average business owner.

A technology-based parody of the classic Christmas story, “A Christmas Carol,” by Charles Dickens.

Once upon a time, in a land not much different from this one, there lived a business owner. His name was Scrooge. He wasn’t an unlikable fellow; jolly and cheerful at any glance, his smile could light up the darkness in anyone’s life. Yet, when the winter months arrived, and a chilled wind blew across the land, so too did a fell gust freeze his heart. It was time to figure out why his systems were hacked (again), and he knew it would be an expensive endeavor. How he hated managing his IT.

An IT parody song to the tune of “Santa Baby.”

Black Friday is widely regarded as the most competitive day for American retailers, and for consumers standing in line to take advantage of rock-bottom prices, the general consensus is that all of this competition is great for their wallets. In the same way, your business can benefit from a healthy dose of friendly competition.

Our minds often attribute unexplained phenomena with hauntings from ghosts. Most of the time, there's a perfectly good scientific explanation for what's going on. If you ever see your computer's cursor move on its own, your PC isn't haunted. Although, you might prefer a haunting to what's really happening; a hacker is probably stealing your data. Now that's scary!

Everyone has heard horror stories about the spirits of the dead lingering in this world. Every culture on this planet has different beliefs about the nature of these spectral beings. Not much is known about these beings, but people still believe without a doubt that they exist. In regards to technology, ghosts do exist, in the form of ghost servers.

Last week, the Heartbleed bug was identified as a weakness in the OpenSSL cryptographic library, potentially leaking two-thirds of the Internet's secure information from any websites utilizing this encryption style. While most major websites such as Google, Yahoo, and Facebook released patches quickly, it does little to actually remediate the problem. Your data could have been leaked over the year-plus that the vulnerability could have been accessed. There is no way to know if it has been compromised.

Around the holidays, we are often reminded how important it is to give, and graciously receive good will. One story that sparks these thoughts is Charles Dickens' classic tale, A Christmas Carol. For those of you who are not familiar with the story, Ebenezer Scrooge, a wealthy, shrewd miser gets visits from the three spirits of Christmas after he believes that Christmas is no better than a day of wasted profits. Scared out of his wits by the legacy he would leave behind if he didn't change, Scrooge's transforms into a generous and caring man, literally overnight. This story has been told several different ways over a century, but the premise is still the same, profits aren't always what matters most.

A Song In the tune of "Here Comes Santa Claus"