Category: IT Support

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Top 10 Software and Tech Solutions for Small Businesses

Don’t shy away from technology in your business! It’s time to get acquainted with some of the best software and tech solutions for small businesses at the moment.

1. Encrypt emails for free with My Protected Mail

Of course we’re going to start with one of our own products! The introduction of GDPR has placed a renewed emphasis on email security. All small businesses have a duty to protect the data of their customers, clients, and employees. A reliable, straightforward way to protect data sent electronically is to use encryption.

Encrypted emails can only be viewed by the sender and specified receivers; they are protected from interception, even when an email is forwarded.

My Protected Mail is a tech solutions for small businesses that does this for free. There’s no software to install; simply send your email to a dedicated mailbox, and the platform will issue a Microsoft Protected Email that can be accessed only by the intended recipient. There’s also scope to add enhanced features for a reasonable monthly fee for developers to encrypt web portal or app communication. Try My Protected Mail here.

2. Defend your business from online attacks with Acronis Ransomware Protection

Ransomware attacks, in which malicious software blocks access to devices with the aim of extorting money from the owner, can completely devastate a small business. Not to mention the risk of a data breach. It’s critically important to proactively prepare; you can find out more by clicking here.

Ransomware protection software mitigates this risk, and it doesn’t have to cost the earth! Acronis Ransomware Protection monitors suspicious behaviour, blocks malicious applications, encrypts files, and recovers damaged data; all for free.

3. Organise every aspect of your business with Asana

Asana is a project management platform that helps your entire team to stay organised and efficient. It allows you to create projects and tasks, assign team members, set deadlines, allocate documents, run reports, and myriad other jobs. It’s suitable for use on computers and mobile devices; even when travelling, you can keep on top of your business!

Asana also interacts seamlessly with 100 other platforms, helping to manage emails, files, calendars, workflows, and dozens of other tasks from one place, simplifying your business processes.

4. Take storage to the cloud! 

Cloud-based storage has proven itself to be a reliable and economical alternative to traditional hard drives and servers. The key benefits to small businesses include cost-effectiveness, automatic backup and recovery, remote accessibility from all devices, and no ongoing server maintenance.

There are countless services to choose from, but our favourites are Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive. All have common features, such as free storage (although the amount varies; 2GB for Dropbox, 5GB for OneDrive, and a whopping 15GB for Google Drive), document collaboration, link sharing, and file privacy. You can also upgrade to a monthly plan for expanded storage.

5. Automatically guard sensitive information with Azure Information Protection

Azure Information Protection (AIP) from Microsoft is a cloud-based tech solutions for small businesses that automatically encrypts emails and files. The system is managed across all Office applications using labels, which are configured to detect sensitive data and protect it. For example, if a credit card number is entered into an Excel spreadsheet, a rule can be set up to prompt the user to protect the information automatically.

Traditionally this can be quite difficult to set up for small businesses, but we created an Azure Information Protection for Small businesses online course to make it easy for you, regardless of whether or not you’re a techie!

6. Bring the team together with Zoom video conferencing

No matter how scattered your team is, video conferencing fosters the collaborative spirit that can otherwise be absent when working remotely. You needn’t be together to succeed together.

Zoom is a complete video conferencing service that includes high-definition online meetings, webinars, instant messaging, document sharing, whiteboards, virtual breakout rooms, calendar integration, and analytic data for meeting organisers. It can be accessed from computers and smart devices; so travelling team members can still participate!

There’s a free version of this tech solutions for small businesses with essential functionality that may be suitable for some small businesses, or there are monthly packages that include expanded features.

7. Protect your business with ESET antivirus

Malware attacks can be extremely disruptive to small businesses; leading to potential loss of files, equipment, and revenue. A high-quality antivirus is therefore essential.

ESET has a strong reputation for keeping computer equipment safe from malware, including viruses, ransomware, rootkits, worms and spyware. It’s easy to use, low in power-consumption, and backed by 30 years of experience and 110 million global users. A free trial is available, with the full version priced from £29.99 per year for one user.

8. Clean up your computer with MyDefrag

When we create files on a computer, they are broken up by a process called fragmentation; this is completely normal, and helps files to fit on a hard disk. However, repeated fragmentation makes reading and writing files a chore for your computer. Defragmentation is essentially a spring clean; a process that puts files back together, boosting your computer’s onward performance.

Windows comes with a built-in defragmentation program, but there are more efficient alternatives. MyDefrag is the best of the bunch; it works quickly and can accommodate external storage. Ultimately, this nifty little program helps your business to avoid slow equipment, repairs, and replacements. For more ways to speed up your computer’s performance, check out our free course here.

9. Cut your phone costs with VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is the technology that facilitates phone calls via the internet. It’s cheaper to make calls by VoIP than a standard landline, and you’ll notice a huge improvement in sound clarity.

The best VoIP service for small businesses in the UK is VoipFone; it’s easy to set up, with excellent customer support, reasonable prices, and a free trial. Global businesses looking for similar features are recommended to try Ring Central or Vonage.

10. Keep on top of your finances with online invoicing

Invoicing is a critical aspect of small business management; online solutions make the process efficient by collating due payments, generating invoices, sending them, and overseeing the collection process.

Invoices contain sensitive information, so it’s important to work only with a trusted platform. Check out this post to find out how small businesses should protect their financial security when using online invoicing.

The most reputable platforms are Freshbooks, Due, Invoicera, And Co. and Harvest. All have at least one free option, whether a trial or essential version, and each has paid subscriptions, which vary in price according to the features you need.

Need help with your IT or tech solutions for small businesses or have a question on software to suit your small business? Join our free support community here.

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15 Things Your IT Support Wants You To Know

IT professionals can be the number one defence for your business or organisation which means they work hard, even if you don’t always understand what it is they do. Sometimes it can be difficult communicating with your IT support so here are a few things you should know about them the next time you want to interact:

  1. We are on your side

It may feel like we are against you when you feel you need new equipment but we are working within a budget, as all departments do and often new doesn’t always equal the best. We are always there to help you use the equipment you have and listen when you think you need more, we are not against you but don’t forget how expensive tech is, sometimes we aren’t the ones saying no, the budget is.

  1. DON’T CLICK THE LINK

We have discussed Phishing Emails in our previous article, as well as how to spot them, but if you aren’t expecting an email or it seems to good to be true, don’t click the link. Otherwise we have to spend the morning/afternoon/evening performing IT surgery on your devices and checking it didn’t infect the main network to protect everyone else. If you are in doubt, contact the company directly or give one of us a shout, we can spot it a mile away (and if we can’t we have protected environments that we can use to double check.)

  1. Turning it on/off again is an actual thing

It is an ongoing joke that most of the world is in on and it sometimes seems like IT support are messing around when they ask you to try turning your machines on and off again, however the action has merit and is the first, in a long line of troubleshooting that could solve a variety of issues. This is partly because sometimes when a computer error or glitch happens it’s because the software is becoming end of life and needs updating, or your computer has been on for an entire month and could do with a little break to start and refresh. If something is going wrong, close and save your applications and try turning it on and off again before calling tech support, you may find you can deal with it on your own.

  1. Everything needs power

It’s surprising how many calls we get when something isn’t working, only to find that it either isn’t plugged in or it’s been switched off at the switch and no-one has noticed. Always make sure you are plugged into an outlet, your device is charged and the switch is turned on.

  1. We aren’t miracle workers

If you haven’t saved your work in 10 days and your computer dies or you have lost an email from 1992 that you want us to retrieve, it’s not always possible. There are a lot of sneaky tricks that we can try and we can delve into the depths of a computer log, but if the data isn’t there, we can’t give it to you. Sorry!

  1. It’s not an exact science

Unlike actual science there isn’t always a definite fix for everything and as technology advances, your IT support has to adapt and advance with it. This means that we can’t always jump straight onto a solution and fix it straight away. Imagine you get a new phone, it takes a few days for you to learn the new keyboard or layout, it’s the same for us with new software or tech, even updates for things we have been doing for 10 years, it’s not that we don’t know what we are doing, we just need a moment to get used to things. Also, different users have different settings on their devices which means we need a minute to adapt to your way of thinking.

  1. You don’t need to diagnose the problem, that’s what we are here for

It’s fantastic when users have a bit of understanding on their machines because it means you are able to use them effectively, however when they go wrong and you can’t fix it, that’s our job. We just need to know the symptoms of the problem, anything you have tried and what you were doing when it occurred and we can get to work. We know you are trying to be helpful by suggesting what you think is the problem, but we have a system and commonly it’s not the same thing.

  1. Stop illegally downloading

We know you do it, you are on our network, we then have an obligation to follow this up and potentially report it. Don’t download illegally, particularly when you are at work, we can see it, it’s awkward and 9 times out of 10 we can trace it back to you and everyone has to have a discussion, it’s not worth your time or ours. This goes for watching “those sites” too.

  1. The Slow Computer Dilemma

It is a phrase that IT support and professionals are used to hearing, a LOT, “my computer is slow.” However, this is not always the case and can actually be the way it is being used, for example, do you have a ton of tabs open or have you updated recently? Are you trying to do something it wasn’t designed to do or using software that requires more processing power than you have. Speak to your IT professional about what it is you are doing with your computer before going down the slow route, there are plenty of things they can do to help speed it up that may not be the computer at all.

  1. Give us credit

It sounds self-indulgent however there is a lot of time and energy that goes into IT support and you don’t necessarily see the out of hours work or the morning weekend server re-boots that go into ensuring your systems are as stable as possible. But the Wi-Fi in unavailable for 5 minutes and we get a hundred phone calls immediately about us not being able to do our jobs. When you pass them in the halls or at work, thank your IT support guy, particularly when everything is going well, it means he’s been putting the hours in and going above and beyond.

  1. We don’t get the final say

Many IT support staff don’t have the authority to buy you a new laptop or okay the latest tech in the office, event IT managers have to discuss things with finance or other departments but we can be powerful allies. If you can prove a business need for your new tech and convince us, we can help persuade others that it is necessary, plus we are the ones who will have to set it up, maintain it and implement any solutions you put in place so it’s good to get us on board beforehand.

  1. We hate printers too!

They are the bane of our existence, need replacing, are naughty on networks and a lot of them are stuck in the 90’s but they are essential for offices, the hospitality industry and pretty much everything, so until they invent something better, we are all just stuck with them!

  1. Communication is key

How are we supposed to know something is wrong or how long it has been doing it if you don’t tell us? We can appreciate that a malfunctioning computer is frustrating (we definitely know this!) but we need you to explain everything so we can diagnose and fix it as quickly as possible without adding the unnecessary guesswork of trying to understand what you need doing to it.

  1. Data Protection is a legal requirement

Secure passwords, two-form authentication and other policies that your IT department put in place aren’t only there to protect your data, it’s to protect the information companywide. With new GDPR regulations, not taking the proper precautions to protect your own, business or client data can result in huge fines and data protection leaks. Not to mention the spyware, ransomware or nasties that can corrupt your own data. As annoying as it is, please follow our protection protocols, they help everyone.

  1. Karma’s a beautiful thing

IT support help an array of users, businesses and keep networks running, all while dealing with any little issue (or the printer…again) that you have. So be nice, respectful and appreciate that we are doing the best we can and are working on elements that you can’t see, rather than sitting in a basement and gaming all day (some of us do that too.) But ultimately, if you are looking to skip the queue or get something done ASAP, you can catch more flies with honey.

At the end of the day, IT support is there to help you, just try to remember that we are human as well!

Find out more about our IT Solutions here.