Printers are among the more important pieces of equipment businesses have. They are one of, if not the only, way to create hard copies of data stored on your computer. There are a nearly limitless number of printing jobs that can be done. As such, manufacturers have introduced a number of different types of printers, making it slightly confusing as to the difference between all the models available.

Here is a brief overview of the five main types of printers most often used in businesses.

Impact Impact printers work by physically striking an inked ribbon onto paper, one dot at a time, to make up the printed image or word. Most users refer to this printer as a dot matrix which is the name of the physical printing mechanism.

Impact printers are the simplest and oldest form of printer used by businesses. They are most often used for documents or forms that require multiple impressions, like paychecks and older style invoices. While you can still find companies using these printers, and can still buy them, most businesses are opting for more efficient, and quieter units.

Laser Laser printers use create a static charge on a drum which attracts and melts toner, which is then passed over a piece of paper to produce the printed image or text. They are fast, efficient, print high-quality text and are generally economical.

These printers are similar to large photocopy machines, (they use the same technology), and can often offer the same capabilities, just in a smaller package. They are best suited for offices that print large amounts of text, like business reports and simple graphics.

Inkjet Inkjets physically spray ink from a nozzle onto the page to make the graphic or text. These printers are generally slower than laser printers, but tend to produce higher quality printed images, and are usually cheaper to purchase.

If you have a business that needs to print high-quality graphic-heavy documents e.g. brochures, the inkjet is likely your best bet. On the downside, ink is absorbed by standard paper causing some smudging, so for the best quality you will have to use more expensive printer paper.

Multifunction An increasingly popular printer is the multifunction or all-in-one. Part copier, fax machine, scanner and printer, these machines bring a number of important office tools together into one package. These printers often come in both laser and inkjet versions and many can even connect to Wi-Fi.

If you are looking to replace existing components, like the scanner and copier, these types of printers are an ideal solution. If you are looking for a new printer then they are perfect, as you won't have to buy other peripherals.

Thermal Thermal printers use heat and specially treated paper to print. You see them most often in receipt and cash machines. If you own a restaurant, store, etc. one of these printers can be a valuable investment.

There are a wide variety of printers out there, and we can guarantee that there will be one that meets your needs. If you are looking for a new system, or to replace existing components, why not call us today. We may have a printing solution that fits your needs.

When it comes to your business there are many dangers that could negatively impact your bottom line, or even force you out of business. As such, it's a good idea to have a plan in place to help keep your business operational during any disaster. This strategy is commonly referred to as a Business Continuity Plan, and is something that companies will benefit from looking into.

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.

For many, social media is a deeply ingrained part of daily life. For companies it's become an integral part of their marketing and communications strategy. Because of this, the security of these services is something users expect. 99% of the time. However, there are breaches that can cause trouble for users.

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.

As technology continues its creep into every aspect of our life, the number of Internet connected devices we use is also growing. This has led to an increase in the number and severity of security threats facing networks. It seems that almost every week a new security threat is uncovered. One of the latest can potentially affect nearly every device that connects to the Internet.

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.

Productivity is something many business owners and their employees strive for. Most would be out of work if they weren't productive. Two of the most common productivity tools are email and the calendar. The only problem is email is usually separate from the calendar app and it can be a pain to switch between the two. If you are a Google Apps user, there is an app that brings the two together to help make you more productive.

You may be familiar with the app Boomerang which allows you to schedule emails to be sent later. Well, the developers of Boomerang also offer Boomerang Calendar for Google Calendar. This app brings three great productivity enhancing features.

One-click scheduling of meetings Gmail users know that when you are reading an email and need to look up a date, you can't easily do so directly from your email. Boomerang Calendar adds an option to 'suggest meeting times' directly in the email draft window. Pressing suggest meeting times will bring up a pop-up window of Google Calendar with lets you select different potential meeting times.

You can then generate a template in the email which will contain the suggested times. This is a lot easier than switching back and forth between tabs and sending more than one email to figure out a time and date.

Smart email scanning Another cool feature of this app is that it scans your emails for dates and will give you the option to create meetings or events directly from your email. Alternatively, clicking on the time will open your calendar in a pop-up window to the date and time to show you if you have any conflicting appointments. You can also suggest alternative times if there is a schedule conflict.

Better group planning Collaboration and teamwork are crucial these days, but it can be a chore to get employees from different departments together at the same time. This app allows you to create a group event right from Gmail with the press of a button. Pressing the Plan Group Event button will open a pop-up where you can invite team members, name the event and propose dates and times.

When you send the email, recipients will be able to sign up for the time they like, allowing you to keep track of it. This helps the group pick a time that works, and reduces the number of emails that go back and forth, which means you can spend more time on managing your business.

Boomerang Calendar is currently only available for Gmail users, and is in Open Beta testing, meaning it's free. There is no word on when, or if, this will be released for Outlook users, however the chances are high that there will be an app coming soon. If you would like to install this app, check out the website here. And if you would like to learn how our tech products and services can help you be more productive at work, please contact us today.

One of the common goals companies strive for, regardless of industry, is the minimization of costs and maximization of profit. This is especially true for small businesses who often operate with razor thin margins, where any cost saving is well appreciated. One often overlooked way to save money is by reducing your printing overhead.

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.

One of the most popular tech trends amongst businesses is virtualization. The common reason businesses virtualize their systems is that if it's done right, you could see substantial savings. It's quite common for a company's servers to be the first systems to be virtualized. However, while many small business owners want to virtualize, they sometimes struggle to get virtualization off the ground.

Here's five tips on better server virtualization for small to medium businesses.

1. Reality is key - It's easy, when reading about tech, to get caught up in all the new devices, ideas, etc. and maybe begin to lose site of your situation. It's not uncommon to have a small business owner want to virtualize all servers at once. This is often not feasible - budget and technology wise.

Instead, you should take the time to assess your servers and identify which servers are best suited to virtualization. For example, if the server that handles your email is starting to show its age, this may be a prime candidate. After identifying potential servers to virtualize, you can begin to develop a better plan.

2. Check compatibility - After you have picked servers for virtualization, you should look at the software the servers handle, to see if they are compatible with the virtualization software you plan to use. Should the software not be compatible you will either have to look for another solution, or upgrade the software. Fail to do this and you could face setbacks and compatibility issues which will likely cause a drop in efficiency, or even negate the savings arising from virtualization.

It is also a good idea to look at whether the server itself is capable of supporting virtualization. Each virtualization solution has different requirements and this is a good thing to keep in mind. Virtualization solutions are always advancing, so the server that can just about handle a solution now may not be able to handle it in a year or two.

3. Don't forget about your data backup solutions - Interestingly, many virtualization providers also provide data backup solutions. It may be a good idea to look at your existing backup and if it is compatible with the systems you plan to use. If not, this could prove costly for your business if something should happen where you need this.

4. R.S.S. - Reduce. Sell. Save. Server virtualization allows for many servers to be run on one physical unit. This means you will be able to reduce the number of servers, sell them, and finally reap bigger savings through decreased maintenance and operational costs.

5. Work with and IT expert - The above steps can be daunting, even to those in the IT field. There's just so much to focus on that business owners and managers often don't have this kind of time. That's why we highly recommend that in order to get the most out of virtualization, you work with a virtualization expert who can focus on helping you stay realistic, ensure the compatibility of your systems and orient your backup systems.

Looking for an IT expert to help you virtualize your systems? Why not contact us? We may have a solution to help you get even more out of your systems.

Data is commonly defined as a collection of numbers, words, charts, etc. Every technological gadget produces data these days, and the processing of this turns it into information. It's this information that we use to make decisions, which generate more data. There is so much data available that it can be challenging to keep track of it all and turn it into valuable information for decision making. Because of this, the idea of big data has arisen. Media outlets have highlighted big data, causing many businesses to become curious about it. Are you one of them?

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.

Email is a crucial component that many businesses have come to rely on, so much so that when the program they use has a problem the whole business is hamstrung. Many companies use Microsoft's Outlook, which does stop working from time-to-time. One of the most common issues is when your emails aren't being sent.

Here's three tips on what to do if there is an email stuck in your outbox.

Re-send it From Outlook's main window, click on the Send/Receive tab (usually located beside Home), followed by Send All. This will tell the program to try and send any email in the inbox again. After you press this, check your outbox to see if the email is still there. If it isn't, you know it has been sent.

Check the attachment If you notice an email is still sitting in your outbox, check and see if you attached a file. As a general rule of thumb: Larger files will take longer to send. Is the attachment a big file? If yes, try waiting a few minutes (it could take upwards of 10 minutes depending on file size).

Another problem may be that the file size is above the attachment limit, which is ordinarily set by the email server. If the attachment is over the limit, Outlook will continuously try to send the message, but it won't be able to send it. You often won't be able to change the email once it's in the outbox. The easiest way to remedy this is by:

• Clicking on the Send/Receive tab.
• Selecting Work Offline from the ribbon.
• Opening the message and deleting the attachment.
• Making the attachment smaller.
• Re-attaching the file and sending the email again.

There are many ways you can make attachments smaller. One of the most popular is to zip it using a program like WinZip, or PeaZip. If the attachment is still too large, you may be better off trying one of a  number of cloud storage solutions which allow you to upload and share larger files. You will just have to let email recipients know the link of the file in the email.

You're offline If the email still isn't being sent take a look at the bottom of the window in Outlook. There should be a grey bar, called the Status Bar. If you see a yellow warning triangle with an '!' in it and the words Disconnected beside it, that  means either your Internet connection isn't working or the email server is offline.

To check if your Internet connection is working, try loading any webpage. If this doesn't load, most browsers will display an error message, telling you to check your Internet connection. If the Internet is working fine, it's probably a good chance your email service is offline. When the server comes back online, the warning triangle should be replaced with the Outlook logo and a note stating you are connected.

To learn more about how to ensure Office and all of the related products are helping make business easier, please contact us.

For as long as computers have been able to connect to the Internet, there have been security flaws and the two go hand-in-hand. Companies do their best to shore up security problems, and some do better than others. There's one popular Internet based program that has had a slew of security issues in the past year, prompting many experts to suggest you should disable it.

That program is Java - a programming language and application that allows developers to create web applications, and users to view much of the visual content and animations on the Internet. The problem isn't with the programming language per se, but with the application developed by Oracle Systems.

Oracle released an update to Java - Java 7, Update 10 - in December, but it was found to have some serious security flaws. These issues were quickly spotted by hacker groups who released exploit kits - software making it easy to exploit Java 7's security weaknesses - giving them full security privileges. This exposed any computer running Java 7 to potential malware and attack. Because Java runs at the browser level, every OS could be targeted. To make matters worse, 30 security flaws were patched back in September, after nearly 1 billion computers were found to be at risk.

It's this string of security red flags that had the US Department of Homeland Security issue a warning that users should disable Java on their browsers. In response to this, Oracle updated Java again,  to Java 7, Update 11 on January 12, and noted that the security flaw had been fixed. Many experts, including those at the Department of Homeland Security, aren't convinced though, and are still suggesting that users disable Java because new vulnerabilities will likely be discovered.

How do I disable Java? Chrome users

1. Open Chrome and enter Chrome://plugins/ in a blank tab's URL bar.
2. Find Java (TM).
3. Click Disable.
4. Restart Chrome.

Firefox users

1. Open Firefox and click Tools from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
2. Select Add-ons followed by Plugins.
3. Find the Java plug-in, it's usually called Java Applet Plug-in (Mac) or Java(TM) (Windows) and click Disable.
4. Close and restart Firefox.

Safari users

1. Open Safari and click File followed by Preferences.
2. Click the Security tab.
3. Uncheck the box that says Enable Java.
4. Close and restart Safari.

Internet Explorer users There is no way for you to disable Java in the browser, you will instead have to completely disable Java from your computer. This can be done by following the steps on the Java website.

If you do disable Java, some websites will no longer work. This can be a bit of an annoyance, but in all honesty, security of your systems is more important, not to mention the potential costs of dealing with a massive malware infection. Besides that, many websites no longer use Java, so you can probably get by without it. At the very least, we recommend you go download the latest update from the Java website and apply it to all computers.

One issue that we need to be clear on is that these security flaws are part of the Java plug-in. You may see something called JavaScript. While the name sounds similar, they are different. JavaScript is largely used in HTML documents, and allows them to function, and is secure. If you do run across it, it's best to leave the script alone.

If you would like to learn more about this update, you can visit an excellent FAQ here. Before you do update, or disable Java, we recommend you contact us. We can help advise you on what steps to take next if you use Java.