Proactive IT is something we harp on a lot, and that’s because it works… especially compared to the alternatives. However, what does proactive IT mean, and how can you get the most out of your business technology?
Perhaps more importantly, how can you make sure your technology doesn’t become a liability rather than an asset?
With so many devices now connecting to the Internet, decreasing your business’ threat surface area is more important than ever. Your threat surface area consists of any device that connects to your organization’s IT infrastructure, and if you’re not careful or forget a couple of oddball wearables, you could be looking at a data breach. Today, we want to go over how you can prevent that from happening.
Fairly recently, news circulated that a data breach had exposed 16 billion—yes, with a “b”—passwords for various logins, including social media accounts, virtual private networks, corporate tools, and more. Effectively, every online service imaginable was represented in this breach.
This is very bad… arguably unprecedented.
However, this impression is at best misleading. Let’s dig into the truth of the matter, while still acknowledging that there are some lessons to be learned.
Managed IT
Every business decision is made based on available capital. IT professionals--the good ones--can cost a lot of money, prompting many organizations to cut costs by simply going without hiring IT professionals. This presents another assortment of problems, as there is an inherent risk associated with not taking proper care of your technology assets. It also makes technology deployment considerably more difficult, if not impossible.
One-way organizations can take advantage of IT services without having a full-fledged IT department is through a managed service provider, or MSP. MSPs provide many services for a fraction of the cost of an internal IT department, including monitoring and maintaining your network and computing infrastructure. Furthermore, you can trust that they will adhere to industry best practices, as when you succeed, they succeed as well. Through preventative care, MSPs help your business find value in one of the most costly parts of operation: your IT.
Co-Managed IT
Even if your business would rather have an internal IT department, you can still benefit greatly from outsourcing at least a portion of their responsibilities to a MSP. This is called co-managed IT, where your business still maintains an on-site IT staff while outsourcing the remainder of its responsibilities to a managed service provider. This solves a number of issues related to having an on-site IT department.
For example, the IT department of a small business is likely to have issues keeping up with maintenance, helping those in need of assistance, and implementing major projects. There’s just not enough time in the day to make all of this happen regularly. Through co-managed IT, you can outsource specific roles to National Technologies Group to ensure it all goes off without a hitch. The end result is a more focused in-house team that can handle their primary responsibilities while the rest is handled by trusted IT experts. To learn more, reach out to us at +61295186000.
Restoring Closed Tabs
Accidentally closing a tab can be annoying--especially if you can’t remember how you got there. Thankfully, there is a shortcut you can use to get back to where you were. This shortcut is Ctrl + Shift + T, which will reopen a recently closed tab.
Close a Window or Tab
If you are ready to close your window or tab, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + W to close it quickly.
Spacebar Scroll
If you don’t want to use your mouse wheel to scroll down a page, you can instead use the spacebar. If you hold down the Shift key and tap Space, your screen will jump down in full-screen increments rather than the slow crawl from just the arrow key.
Mousewheel Functions
You can use your mouse scroll wheel to perform various tasks. One of them involves quickly opening a link in a new tab. You can do this by clicking on it with the mouse scroll wheel (yes, there is a button under it). This saves you the trouble of going through multiple clicks with your mouse.
What are your favorite computer tips and tricks? Now’s your chance to share them in the comments.
