SMART Blog

Smart Services has been providing independent agents with proactive, fast, and expert technology services since 1991.

Redundancy: a Benefit When Dealing with Data

Redundancy: a Benefit When Dealing with Data

Data is the backbone of any modern business. Since your organization relies so much on it, you need to have measures in place to ensure that your business can access it in some way, shape or form at all times. This is easier said than done, especially for a business on a budget. We’ll walk you through how you can implement a comprehensive data backup solution to protect your organization.

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Tip of the Week: Did You Know Your Computer Can Do All This?

Tip of the Week: Did You Know Your Computer Can Do All This?

Your computer is mostly just a machine used to accomplish specific tasks. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t know all of the advanced tips that help you get the most out of it, though. Here are some of the best shortcuts that you can use to take full advantage of your workstation.

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Keep Your End Users From Contributing to Security Issues

Keep Your End Users From Contributing to Security Issues

Insider threats contribute to a significant number of data breaches. These cases of data exposure are enabled by a member of your staff, whether they intended to harm your business or simply made an honest mistake. With so much focus directed toward the threats out in the world, sometimes we forget that the biggest dangers can be among our ranks. To make up for this, we’ll discuss a few ways to keep insider threats from doing your business too much harm.

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Two-Factor Authentication Frequently Asked Questions

Two-Factor Authentication Frequently Asked Questions

Data security is such a core consideration of the modern business that every small effort you can take to protect your business is important. One such effort is the implementation of two-factor authentication. However, your employees may not initially feel entirely comfortable with some facets of two-factor authentication.

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Tip of the Week: We All Make Mistakes, but Try To Avoid These Computing Ones

Tip of the Week: We All Make Mistakes, but Try To Avoid These Computing Ones

Mistakes happen, especially where technology is involved. There are plenty of ways that user error can occur when using a computer--many of which are avoidable through simple preventative measures. For our tip this week, we’ll go over some behaviors to avoid when using a computer.

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Are the Deals Better on Black Friday or Cyber Monday?

Are the Deals Better on Black Friday or Cyber Monday?

Many consider the beginning of the holiday (shopping) season to be Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. This day is infamous for deals so good, people are willing to wait in line for hours before the stores even open in order to take advantage of them--however, are these deals really the best, when Cyber Monday is now in play? We examined what can be expected on the major deal days to find out.

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Do Your Employees Shop Online While at Work?

Do Your Employees Shop Online While at Work?

With the growing popularity of Cyber Monday sales and the growth of all types of eCommerce, your employees are likely tempted to shop during work hours. To add to the attraction, there are a lot of promotions exclusively available to online shoppers that take place during business hours of operations. Many companies allow occasional use of company time for personal use. However, some employees are going to take advantage of this generosity and abuse the privilege.

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Hackers May Meet Their Match With AI

Hackers May Meet Their Match With AI

There are many key organizations in the world that simply can’t afford to have cybercriminals and hackers interfering with their data. One of these organizations, CERN (whose acronym translates to the European Laboratory for Particle Physics), has far too powerful of a computer grid to allow hackers to access it. To keep it safe, CERN has deployed what may be the future of cybersecurity: artificial intelligence.

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IT Outsourcing Has a Surprising History

IT Outsourcing Has a Surprising History

You might have only recently heard about outsourced IT services, but you might be surprised to hear that they have been around for far longer than you previously thought. Even before managed IT, however, business owners and individuals alike were using the outsourced services of others to simplify operations and day-to-day tasks related to their technology management.

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Scams to Watch For This Holiday Season

Scams to Watch For This Holiday Season

Hackers put a lot of thought and effort into coming up with new ways to fool the unsuspecting consumer, especially during the holiday season. Here are some recent scams you should watch for.

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Tip of the Week: Planning Your Holiday Travels? Have A Plan For Productivity

Tip of the Week: Planning Your Holiday Travels? Have A Plan For Productivity

With Labor Day now behind us, it’s a hop, skip, and jump until the holidays arrive. With more companies allowing their employees to work remotely, holiday travel means that people are going to be taking their work on the road with them. Preventing credit card and identity theft has been a priority for shoppers during the season for many years. It’s important that the same security considerations be given to technology being used for business while traveling.

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Major Cyber Threats Are Less Of A Worry With An MSP’s Help

Major Cyber Threats Are Less Of A Worry With An MSP’s Help

Dozens of surveys and reports are produced each year that evaluate digital threats and cybercrime. Not every publication applies to every business - but many of them do have some important take-aways about the best practices of handling IT. Here’s few highlights from the 2017 Cyberthreat Defense Report that offer important insight for SMBs and their use of technology.

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Tip of the Week: Transferring Data from Your Android Device to Your Network

Tip of the Week: Transferring Data from Your Android Device to Your Network

Does your business have trouble keeping data on the company network? This can be an issue if your employees use their mobile devices to do work while on the go. In order to keep this from becoming an issue, you should encourage your employees to not keep sensitive data on their mobile devices, and establish policies that give you control over your data and email on personal devices. That said, let’s show you how to get your data off of your Android device and back on your network where it belongs.

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Tip of the Week: 9 Tech Practices That Make Work Better

Tip of the Week: 9 Tech Practices That Make Work Better

Each worker within an organization is delegated some sort of responsibility based on their role. Managers are responsible for managing, while human resources keep all workers accountable for their responsibilities. Yet, there are multiple responsibilities designated to all employees who use technology for their everyday duties.

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Tip of the Week: Microsoft Outlook Is Easier With Shortcuts

Tip of the Week: Microsoft Outlook Is Easier With Shortcuts

Microsoft Outlook can be a fantastic way to communicate, but only if you know how best to use it. When you’re using it to reach out to clients or vendors, you need to consider the best practices and shortcuts you can use to make the most of it. We’ll discuss some of the best ways that you can use Microsoft Outlook to help your business function better as a whole.

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Tip of the Week: Annoyed By Fake Friend Requests on Facebook? Here’s an Easy Fix

Tip of the Week: Annoyed By Fake Friend Requests on Facebook? Here’s an Easy Fix

Have you ever received Facebook requests from people you don’t know? While it might be tempting to give them the benefit of the doubt -- after all, maybe they know a friend of yours -- it’s best to keep strangers off of your page when you can. In order to give your page the flexibility to accept friend requests from people you may know and protect it from strangers, you can implement a “follow” feature, and limit who can send you friend requests.

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Tip of the Week: How to Set Your Windows Apps to Automatically Open in Full Screen

Tip of the Week: How to Set Your Windows Apps to Automatically Open in Full Screen

Here’s something that you might not have noticed about opening Windows applications on your desktop; by default, they will generally open in a smaller window, giving you the ability to customize their size as you see fit. If you want a full size Window, it’s as easy as clicking on the maximize button in the top-right corner, but what if you didn’t want to go through this every time you open the app? There’s a solution for this, and we’ll help you find it.

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10 Types of Hackers You Need to Know About

10 Types of Hackers You Need to Know About

When you hear the term “hacker,” what do you imagine? Based on the popular images out there, you might imagine a lone user (in a hoodie or ski mask?) hunched over a computer, creating chaos for chaos’ sake. However, this is a dangerously narrow view of “hackers.”

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6 Data Backup Best Practices that Make Your Business More Resilient

6 Data Backup Best Practices that Make Your Business More Resilient

As an agency owner, you’ve surely thought about what the future holds for your organization. However, one of the areas that is often overlooked is how you will respond in the event of a data disaster. How can your business bounce back from such a catastrophic event? One of the first steps is understanding your data backup and disaster recovery process, as well as how you can improve your current setup.

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Tip of the Week: 3 Ways for Your Business to Take Full Advantage of the Cloud

Tip of the Week: 3 Ways for Your Business to Take Full Advantage of the Cloud

Connectivity to the cloud is a great opportunity your organization can leverage to its advantage, but only if it’s done well. No two businesses will have the same exact configuration when it comes to cloud, as the needs and responsibilities that are accomplished through that cloud solution will change. This week’s tip is dedicated to helping you discover which cloud solution is right for you.

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