A New Year’s Tech Resolution To Stick To

Posted on 27/12/2018 by David Perkovic

Most of us set goals, tasks, and challenges to tackle especially at the start of a new year. Cleaning out the house, checking for the best energy deals or promising to join a gym are some of the types of goals we set to improve our lives and build on our productivity and health in the future.

Resolutions to improve for the coming year are great things to aspire towards; whether they are organising your office, tidying your house, or taking control of your digital footprint. The problem though is motivation can quickly fall away by the end of January. If you manage to achieve only one of your goals for this year, make it to put a good data backup in place.

Continue reading →

How Safe is Your Company Data in the Cloud?

Posted on 22/12/2018 by Guest Blogger

Out of all the disruptive technologies that have emerged in the last few decades, not many have had as big of an impact as cloud computing. Known by many names, this practice allows companies to store information on servers located off-premises, but are still accessible to their employees via the internet. Continue reading →

Save Time & Money with Proactive IT Services

Posted on 30/11/2018 by David Perkovic

IT support services can be one of the largest and most unpredictable expenses within a modern business. Unexpected failures, mandatory upgrades and sudden staff changes can happen quickly and the costs can soon add up.

These factors are a part of the IT world and make IT departments costly, hard to manage, and difficult to budget for.

Switching your business to a proactive IT support provider (or managed service provider – MSP) can lower costs and reduce unpredictable expenses. Making the switch can cut down management overheads and reduce budgets to a fixed monthly cost. Here are some tips on how this can be done:

Continue reading →

Keeping On Top Of Your Workday

Posted on 25/11/2018 by David Perkovic

It is very easy to lose track of time during your busy workday. Often you can be running late before you know it and wondering where the time has gone. Luckily, there is range of technology solutions to help you organise your to-do list and help you get on top of your workday.

The Outlook Calendar

We are often guilty of spending the entire day stuck with emails in Outlook. In addition to emails, there are a range of features that can help you make the most of Outlook. With some simple tweaks, you will be able to manage your day like a pro.

The Outlook Calendar allows you to make quick changes, alter your diary, and update items on the go. The Calendar interface allows appointments to be picked up and moved to a different time or date with ease.

The biggest advantage Outlook has is the ability to access and update it from anywhere. With 2-way sync, appointments, meetings, and events can be updated anywhere and accessed everywhere – whether it be on your computer, laptop, tablet or phone. The days of no longer being able to check your calendar because you are not sitting in front of your computer are now long gone.

Today you can add events straight from your email and even invite others to events can be contacted with reminders automatically. You can even schedule your own reminders before the event too. Using your calendar to stay on top of your day has never been easier.

OneNote

The Microsoft Office suite includes OneNote, despite it not being as well known as other members of the Office suite (ie Outlook, Word, excel etc) it can be an indispensable tool that you shouldn’t do without.

OneNote acts as a virtual notebook to keep your ideas, projects, and notes in line. Using OneNote enables you to power-up your text with drawings and diagrams, tailor your projects with color coding, and record your thoughts with media clips all in one location.

OneNote is becoming the ultimate record keeping tool that you simply can’t go into a meeting without. Physical notebooks begin to seem like a relic of the past, limited by old constraints that no longer apply to a laptop or tablet with OneNote.

Microsoft To-Do

Powered by Office 365 is Microsoft’s To-Do application. To-Do offers a simple, straightforward to-do list that makes it easy to plan your day.

Whether planning your school work, business projects or keeping on top of your home life, To-Do is designed to boost productivity and make the most of your time. The simple interface makes it easy to use and the instant reward for checking of tasks makes it well worth your while.

To-Do sorts your tasks into lists, which are combined into a single day view. The view of your day provides a clear, clutter-free list of tasks to be done.

Being Office 365 based means that the application syncs with all your devices to give you access from anywhere. This empowers you to quickly add, change, schedule, and tick off tasks as you go.

Keeping On Top Of Your Day

Losing track of time is easy to do. It does not take too much before your day seems completely out of order. With the tools listed above from Office 365 and a tiny bit of planning, your days can become more productive than ever.

Being back on track, you will no longer have to spend your free time making up for lost time. Your spare time will be your own again and everyone will wonder how you manage to remain so productive.

Give these tools a try today and you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them.

If you need help and are in Adelaide South Australia please contact us on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au.

If you enjoyed this article please subscribe to our monthly update so you don’t miss out on any future information.

Tools to Take Your Business To The Cloud

Posted on 20/10/2018 by David Perkovic

Being engaged in business used to mean staying wired in at the office eight to twelve hours a day. In today’s world this is completely untrue as often the most efficient workplace is one that is spread far and wide and always on the go.

With todays technology you can free yourself from your desk with just a laptop computer and 4G modem (or just tether it to your mobile phone). This freedom to work out of the office is a huge advantage to modern businesses.

The Right Tools for the Job

The most important parts of working out of the office is to ensure you don’t lose touch with your team. Maintaining total collaboration between team members can be tricky but their are tools to help you to stay on top of your team communication.

One such tool is Microsoft Office 365, this provides the traditional tools (Word, Excel, Outlook, OneNote etc) and also adds remote team collaboration and a cloud based file server. Files can be saved into the cloud, worked on and accessed anywhere. At one time, remote working meant taking a copy of a file somewhere else to work. Changes to the original weren’t reflected in the remote copy and at least one version was destined to be lost forever.

Software packages such as OneDrive and SharePoint allow the entire team to work on a single centralised file saved to the cloud. Whether you are in the office, on a beach, plane, or train; the file is the same version for everyone.

Collaborative Working

The key to remote working is the ability to collaborate in the cloud with everyone at once. Modern software such as Office 365 allows all team members to be working on a single document at the same time.

Whether the project calls for spreadsheets, documents or a presentation; everyone can work together without missing a beat.

Even when you’re not working out of the office or busy on the road, collaborative software can help to power your team working in the office too.

Admin Done Remotely

Modern software has impacted the way in which we do our finances and simplify your bookkeeping.

Today, cloud computing has opened up ways to speed up business in ways we couldn’t have imagined. Cloud-based accounting packages such as Xero, MYOB or Quickbooks allow for your accounts to be done in the cloud.

Make your Finances Work for You

Maintaining your finances is as simple as logging into a single portal. This tool allows you to take both your admin and your work out of the office and keep it on the go.

By the time your accounts are due, your accountant simply has to log in remotely and pick up where you left off. By the time taxes are due the work is done and you can get on with other important things in your business.

Getting work done out of the office and on the go is a huge boost to productivity. Modern technology and software enables you to keep up to speed, continue collaborating and even stay on top of your accounts from anywhere in the world.

Give us a call today on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au to talk about how we can help you move to the cloud.

How Not To Struggle With Data Storage

Posted on 29/09/2018 by David Perkovic

Many businesses have already embraced the benefits of going fully digital and it has saved us time and eliminated the need for stacks of file cabinets in every office.

But the digital boom presents us with a brand new range of issues. By moving all our files into a digital space, the amount of storage we need to maintain has grown larger and larger.

As digital technology has improved, the resolution and thus the size of the digital files we create has exploded. Items such as photographs, which used to be printed on film are now digital files stored and transferred by computers. As a result of the increase in both the number of digital files we use and their ever-growing size, the size of the data we need to store and backup has exploded exponentially.

This blog lists a number of ways in which we can tackle our ever-growing storage problem.

A Local Server or Network Attached Storage (NAS) Device

A local server is a high end computer system machine designed to serve many files to multiple clients at one time from locally held storage.

The advantage that a local network server has is that all your vital data is available to all users in one central location. This means that all employees on the network can access all the resources made available.

These machines can serve files at the speed of the local network, transferring large projects, files, and documents from a central source within the network quickly and with ease.

A Network Attached Storage device (or NAS) has many of the same network properties but in a smaller more compact profile. These can be available in units small enough to fit in a cupboard nook and yet still provide staggering storage capacity on only a small amount of power.

Both of these units can often be expanded with more and more storage, so as an organization grows over time its storage requirements are met.

Cloud Storage

Sometimes the best option for storage is to move your ever-increasing data outside of the business and into the cloud. Offloading the costs of hardware and IT management can work out to be an intelligent business decision and one that provides freedom and flexibility for your data storage needs.

The real advantage of cloud storage comes from the ability to expand and contract your services as needed without the overhead of adding and maintaining new hardware.

By moving storage to the cloud, data can be accessed from anywhere in the world allowing limitless expansion to any number of devices, locations and offices. Being able to access data from many locations at a single time can often provide a valuable boost to productivity that can help to improve productivity.

Some drawbacks of cloud storage come from factors that may be outside of the control of the business. Not all businesses have access to internet connections that are fast enough to handle large amounts of data transfer to and from the cloud.

Local laws and security regulations can prove to be a barrier to enabling storage in the cloud too. Some regulations either prohibit the feature entirely or enable only certain specific types for use.

The Right Choice For You

Both cloud and local storage can provide further benefits to enhance your business. Audit logs, central backups, and version control can all be used to secure the way your firm handles data.

Whatever your situation, whether a small NAS, server or cloud, we can advise on the best choices for your business.

Contact us on 08 8326 4364 or support@dpcomputing.com.au to allow us to use our expertise to make the right choice for your data.

Does Your Office Need Business-Grade WiFi?

Posted on 25/08/2018 by David Perkovic

In today’s business world, having great WiFi isn’t a luxury – it is a necessity. For some small businesses, consumer grade WiFi may be sufficient (especially if it is not widely used), but with the explosion is usage of mobile devices many find that business-grade WiFi is more appropriate. As companies grow, there becomes a tipping point where business-grade is necessary. So how do you know if your business is ready for business-grade WiFi? Ask yourself the following questions to find out.

How many devices use your Wireless Network?

It used to be that a few laptops connected to your WiFi network, but that is no longer the case. With the rise of portable devices such as smartphones, tablets and other devices each person may be connected to your wireless network from several devices. Consumer-grade hardware is designed for just a few people (ie the small amount that typically live in a single household) but can not manage larger amounts of users and all of their devices. This is especially true for sustained concurrent usage. Remember that your employees aren’t the only people who expect to be able to connect to your WiFi. One of the first things visitors and customers typically do is look for a WiFi network to connect their smartphones to.

What is the size and area of your workspace?

The number of access points you will need for your business is dependent on the amount of physical space that needs to be covered, the shape of the area, wall material and the number of users / devices. In smaller spaces, consumer-grade WiFi may be good enough. Larger, oddly shaped spaces benefit from business-grade. If your building’s walls are made of brick, cinder blocks, or cement, you likely need more access points than buildings made of other materials. Make sure you have a strong connection from all locations. It is annoying to only be connected to wireless in certain areas of a building and find yourself in a deadzone one step later.

Access points for business-grade WiFi tend to be more powerful and flexible. For example, some business WiFi systems can move Wi-Fi devices from a crowded access point to one that is less busy. By doing this, everyones access remains consistent. If you foresee your range needing to increase, such as renting out more space, it is much easier to add more access points to a business-grade network than consumer-grade one. Businesses that anticipate scaling up soon are better off with business-grade WiFi.

Do you want guests to have the same quality Wi-Fi as workers?

In households, where consumer-grade WiFi hardware is used, all users share the wireless network equally. In a home environment, if children are slowing down the internet with Netflix or video games, it is not a big problem. However, a choked business WiFi can cause a lot of problems. Business-grade WiFi allows you proper network management. You can assign a designated amount of bandwidth to different users so they are unable to clog the entire connection. You can also allow visitors internet access without giving them unlimited access to your local network.

How much does the internet affect your employees’ productivity?

For some companies, workers only use WiFi for a few quick tasks. With these types of businesses, if the internet is slow, it won’t have a big impact on how much work your employees get done and consumer-grade wireless might be a good choice. For other companies where there isn’t much people can do if the WiFi isn’t working well then a business grade connection is essential. WiFi troubles can also lead to frustrated and unhappy workers.

Strong WiFi is a necessity for all businesses. This is especially true for larger businesses that connect a lot of devices (from both an employees and visitors perspective) and have a large work area. Also for those where employee productivity depends on a strong connection. The goal is to keep your business-critical technology running smoothly. Consider carefully whether consumer-grade Wi-Fi or business-grade Wi-Fi is the best choice for your business. When you ask yourself the questions above, the answer should become clear.

If you are in Adelaide, South Australia and your business’s wireless network is struggling then give us a call on (08) 8326 4364 or via email at support@dpcomputing.com.au to discuss a solution.

Are You Struggling with Email Overload?

Posted on 23/08/2018 by David Perkovic

While email is a great business tool that has allowed near instantaneous communications with people around the world it can also lead to problems. Many people now receive dozens or even hundreds of emails in a day and at times it can seem like you are wasting your entire day dealing with all those incoming messages. You can quickly become overloaded with emails and the amount of emails also makes finding important messages harder.

So how can we deal with this overload? The first step is to reduce the number of emails you receive and there are a few ways to do this.

Restrict who you give you email address to: It is important to think carefully about who you give your email address to. For example, if you enter a lot of contests, this often automatically subscribes you to their email campaigns and / or adds you to a spam list. If you type your email into every popup box asking for it, these add up. Reduce who you give your email to.

Unsubscribe: If you haven’t opened one of those newsletter emails in months, go through and unsubscribe. Turn off notifications from social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. If you like emails from these networks, then adjust the settings so they email you the highlights once a day or week rather than allowing them to spam your inbox several times per day.

Do you need that notification? If you receive emails that contain information you can find elsewhere, switch those emails off. eg. you might run an e-commerce site that sends an email for every sale. If your website already has a record of this, you don’t need those notifications doubled up. If you really need that notification or email then create a rule to move it into a different folder and thus not clog up your general inbox.

Change your email habits: Change your own email sending habits. If a topic is complex and will require a lot of back and forth conversation, consider discussing it in person, over the phone or via one of the new online collaborative tools like MS Teams. Sending fewer emails will reduce how many you receive and remember that you don’t need to respond to every email you receive.

Resist sending unnecessary messages: Stop the urge to send messages with a single word like “Thanks!” or “Ok” and you will notice others will stop sending you similar, unnecessary messages. When sending group emails, you can also remind others not to use “reply all” unless the information is relevant to the entire group.

Start cleaning up: Start emptying out your inbox now and get rid of any old emails you don’t need to keep. Delete old calendar invites, advertisements or any emails where the problem has been resolved. Respond to any messages that can be answered as soon as you can. Move everything that is left until you have a completely empty inbox. Archive messages where you don’t need to take an action, but you think might be useful. You can search and find these later if necessary. Put other emails into folders based off of the type of email and the priority level.

From now on, try and automate things via rules. You can have receipts automatically go into a receipt folder, calendar invites into another, etc. A cluttered inbox can lead to your mind feeling just as cluttered.. Free up your inbox to free up your mind and create more time in your day-to-day life. Follow these steps and let email overload become a thing of the past.

If you need help with your emails, give us a call on 08 8326 4364 or via email at support@dpcomputing.com.au.

Is A Slow Network Hindering Your Business?

Posted on 15/08/2018 by David Perkovic

Few things in life are as intensely frustrating as slow network speeds. Whether accessing shared files, a database or trying to print, waiting for things to happen seem to take an eternity. Worse still, this extra time can keep both clients and staff waiting and get in the way of business productivity.

Every time you save or retrieve files from another computer or network storage device, data is transferred across the network. Depending on your setup, data can fly over the network or trickle between machines. Poor network speeds are often the bottleneck that slows down the entire IT system. If a slow and unreliable network sounds like your office setup then there are many available solutions available where we can help.

Offices often maintain networking hardware that is as old as the premises they are in or the businesses themselves and have been left in place long after their suggested expiration date. If it is not broken then don’t fix it commonly rules as long as some working connection, however slow, still remains.

Even when the rest of the network is capable of ultra-high speeds, a single bad component or cable can bring the entire network to a slow crawl. Even peripheral devices throughout the network can cause traffic to slow. A badly installed device can send out an overwhelming number of messages that spoils other network traffic. Often just one or two small upgrades is all that is needed to unlock the full speed potential of the network.

Some users equate a slow network to slow internet. Moving to a fast Internet speed often can fix this issue.

For some businesses, installing a dedicated server is an ideal solution that can balance the IT workload. Access to shared resources on a single device often benefits the entire organization by eliminating redundancy. A network server is purpose built with efficiency and reliability in mind to keep your business running at full capacity. By pooling resources for everyone to use, work is evenly shared and centrally available to prevent bottlenecks in the system. Reduced network loads, improved efficiency, and faster transfer speeds mean that higher productivity becomes the new normal.

Moving resources to the cloud can work for many businesses too. Where high speed, low-cost internet services are available, moving your work online can be a highly cost-effective solution. Software packages such as Xero, Quickbooks and MYOB offer finance and accounting packages operating in the cloud. Suites such as Microsoft Office offers services for creating and sharing documents through cloud resources. Both packages eliminate the need for many of the network operations that we use every day.

For many applications such as Quickbooks huge databases sometimes gigabytes in size are required. It is these types of applications where the advantage of the cloud becomes clear. To use this locally, a super fast network and server are needed where as in the Cloud this is all handled by the software provider and only require a simple web page interface for each user. Instantly, looking up finances and editing documents becomes as simple as checking your email. With services moved to the cloud, purchase cost and maintenance of expensive local network hardware are reduced too.

A complete network solution that works to make the most out of all the available resources is unique to every business. Only a tailored solution to address your network needs will increase your productivity.

If you are located in Adelaide, South Australia and your IT is starting to get in the way of your business and your network is running too slow, give us call at 08 8326 4364 and we will see what we can do.

Why Multi-Factor Authentication is Important

Posted on 10/08/2018 by David Perkovic

You hear about hacks all the time in the news. Major websites have had data leaks and lost their users personal information. Computers get infected and malware saves your login details for bank accounts and credit cards. In the worst cases, identity theft occurs because it is an easy crime to commit and has a high reward.

In the past, passwords could be used to keep the bad guys out of your accounts but a single form of authentication is not enough anymore. Cyber hackers have a variety of methods including phishing, pharming and keylogging to steal your password. Also togdays computers have the power to test billions of password combinations.

To make things worse the majority of people use the same password for several websites. That means anybody who has figured out that password has access to multiple accounts that you own. In a time when it is extremely easy to look up what a persons pet is called or their maiden name is, security questions aren’t much help.

Consider how a bank operates. They don’t simply keep their valuables locked away with one key. There are alarms ready to be triggered, motion detectors and even bars on the windows. Your data is valuable and you need more than one line of defense to protect it.

In the computer world, your second line of defense (after your username and password combination) is called “2-factor authentication” (2FA). Sometimes it is referred to as multiple-step or multi-factor verification (MFA). 2-factor authentication is a way to double check a person’s identity. This can be enabled every time a person logs in or just under certain circumstances. For example, signing in from a new device or different country might trigger 2-factor authentication.

Many of the services you may already use, such as Facebook, Gmail, Office365, Xero Accounting, and more, have 2-factor authentication options. If your bank has ever sent you a special code through text or email to enter before logging in, you have already used a type of 2-factor authentication. They can also be in the form of a app on your phone or a small electronic dongle.

MFA is absolutely crucial for online banking, email, and online shopping such as Amazon or PayPal. It’s also a must-have for cloud storage accounts (like Dropbox or Sync), password managers, communications apps, and productivity apps. This is especially true if you frequently use the same passwords for different websites and apps.

Some may consider MFA unnecessary for social networks accounts, but these are actually very important to keep safe. For ease, a lot of websites and apps allow you to sign up through your Facebook or Twitter account. You need to keep these networks safe so that somebody with your password can not suddenly get into every account you have linked.

The point of using MFA is to make hackers’ lives harder and prevent them from easily getting into your accounts. If they have captured your login username and password, they still need a second method to get in, especially when the computer or phone they are using has never logged into your account before. This makes it much harder for anybody to breach your account.

Plus, if you receive a notification with a special code to enter for logging in (and you weren’t trying to log into that account), you have a good signal that somebody else was trying to get in. That means it’s time to change that password and be grateful you had MFA configured.

It is unfortunate that there is currently an abundance of skilled hackers ready to take advantage of those unprepared. Luckily, you can still stop them – even if they have your login information at hand. MFA is one of the easiest methods to keep your accounts safe.

Give us a call at (08) 8326 4364 or via email on support@dpcomputing.com.au to help secure your business and accounts.

DP Computing's Blog

Simplifying Your IT Since 1993

Category Archives: Cloud