Patience is often a virtue, and being budget-conscious is also a plus in business. Yet taking a “wait and see” approach with business tech is a top IT mistake.
There is a lot of uncertainty in the current economy. You may be looking to save money to give your business more budget leeway. But if you don’t make ongoing investments in your IT, your business could suffer. [Read more…]
3 Reasons to Avoid Signing in With Facebook or Google AccountsNine out of ten times today when you visit a website you’re asked to sign in. To add convenience, many sites offer the ability to sign in using a Facebook or Google account. Sure, it’s simpler, but this article will share three key reasons why you might want to avoid this easy route. [Read more…]
An email inbox can get overwhelming. It’s estimated we send 306 billion emails daily; not you personally, of course, although it may feel that way. So, you have to come up with strategies to corral the communications, one of which is deciding whether to delete or archive an email. This primer will help.
First, let’s consider the drawbacks to having all those emails sitting in your inbox. You may think it doesn’t matter, as you work only at the top of the screen with the newest communications. Yet those old emails are more than clutter. If it’s locally hosted, they can also slow down your email platform, and, if it’s remote and you’re paying for storage, they can be costly, too.
You have alternatives: deleting the emails or archiving them.
You should already know what it means to delete an email. You click on the little trash can icon and the email disappears from your inbox. Yet, for at least a certain time frame, you can still find it in your trash bin. If you realize you need to recover that email, you can, but deleting that email marks it for removal from existence entirely.
Unless you’re a double-deleter. If your business imposes mailbox size limits, you may be in the habit of going to the trash and deleting emails there, too. After all, when you delete an email from your inbox and it moves to trash, it continues to take up space.
Another option is to archive the email message. This also takes it out of your inbox but puts it on a different path. The email is indexed and put in a protected storage area for you to access in the future. The indexing preserves the information in a smarter, more searchable way.
Meanwhile, you’re able to revisit those emails using the mail archive’s search function. This allows you to search body content, sender or recipient, and attachments, and it’s all done quickly.
Email archiving can help shorten audit response, keep information for litigation, preserve intellectual property, and help with business continuity. You can also use archiving to check employee communications aren’t violating any policies.
Your business could be in an industry where it needs to keep records for compliance and regulation reasons. In that case, you won’t want to delete emails until you know it is acceptable to do so. You’re going to need to archive instead. In the U.S., five Wall Street brokerages had to pay $8.25 million in fines after deleting customer transaction emails.
Still, you don’t want to get into the habit of archiving everything “just in case.” Honestly, how often do you need to revisit that funny meme from Sally in accounting? And you can’t take advantage of a discount offer from a pet store once it has expired. Deleting makes sense!
Another strategy to avoid having to answer the archive-or-delete question in the first place? Unsubscribe. It takes a moment to click on “unsubscribe” at the top or bottom of an email from a mailing list. This action saves you from having to make yet one more choice in your day.
Need help wrangling your email inbox? Our IT experts can help. We can set up an email management system to help make the decisions about archiving or deletion. Contact us today to book an appointment:
There’s a lot of talk about the best places to use your laptop. We’ll recap that discussion briefly below, but the real focus of this article is where it’s best to put your desktop PC.
First, why does it even matter? Of course, you care how your workstation looks, but beyond the aesthetics, airflow is important too. Computers cool themselves with fans to suck in cool air and expel hot air out the back or top. If you’re not leaving room for the computer to “breath” it can overheat. [Read more…]
With the increasing reach of the Internet of Things (IoT), more of us have devices in the home to connect online: it’s no longer just connecting a computer to a dial-up modem. In fact, it’s estimated that the average home now has as many as 50 connected devices. All this could require a home network upgrade. [Read more…]
Most of us can differentiate between hardware and software. But how many know what firmware refers to? More importantly, is your business securing its firmware against security vulnerabilities? [Read more…]
With the world grappling with a health pandemic, scams are shocking. Regrettably, bad actors are everywhere, always looking for opportunities, and they’re seeing one in the coronavirus. This article outlines what you need to watch out for and how to stay cyber safe.
The last thing you want to read right now is that there’s another threat out there – sorry, but it’s true. Cybercriminals take advantage of fear. They take timely concerns and use them to target victims. Using the anxiety and upheaval around coronavirus is their mission. [Read more…]
At last count, Facebook has clocked up over 2.7 billion users, which makes the platform more attractive than ever for scammers and hackers. While you may be logging in to share your latest family photos or catch up with friends, the chances of accidentally triggering a scam or malware are increasing daily. Here’s how to stay safe on Facebook and stop the spread. [Read more…]
