Ferrum Technology Services Blog

In the wake of a dangerous zero-day vulnerability found in Adobe Flash, which required that users either uninstall it or update to the latest version, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the web needs to find a new way to support rich media integration. Now, Google plans on slowly phasing out Flash in its web browser, Google Chrome, and switch to HTML5 as the default rich media player.

Not too long ago, cloud computing was considered more of a luxury than a commodity. Nowadays, however, many companies, even those who are just getting their feet wet in the business environment, are fully capable of using the cloud for all sorts of purposes. As the cloud transforms into a more accessible technology, many large companies have pushed their cloud platforms to offer secure storage, software deployment, and communications, in an effort to reduce costs.

If your computer is underperforming, then it may not have enough RAM to do what you’re asking it to do. When selecting a PC, how do you know if you have enough RAM?

Microsoft Office 365 can enhance a company's operations in a variety of ways. Yet, due to the fact that not every business is the same, your organization will benefit more from a solution that’s customized to meet your needs. This is a big reason behind Microsoft’s customizable offering: Office 365 Business Premium.

Every business has crucial IT systems that are imperative to its continued functionality. Usually these systems are maintained by an internal IT department, but many small businesses don’t have this luxury. Therefore, they have traditionally relied on break-fix IT companies to handle their technology problems when they hinder operations.

For the busy business owner, demands on schedules make it mandatory to use their smartphone while on the go. While it’s important to be productive, safety is even more important. Therefore, you should never use your phone while driving in such a way that puts you and others at risk.

Have you ever purchased a new appliance that you set aside for several months, only to take it out and find that you misplaced the manual for how to use it? Before the Internet became a major part of everyday life, you would be out of luck, or you would have to contact the company for assistance with your device. Now, it’s simply a matter of looking for the online electronic manual.

If we told you ten years ago that you would be able to print machine parts out of your printer, would you have believed us? Probably not; yet, that’s just how far technology has progressed in the past decade. All types of industries, particularly manufacturing, have found that 3D printing is a great alternative to traditional manufacturing processes.

Before 3D printing became possible, there was a ton of hype surrounding it. People thought it would be a game-changing innovation. Yet, some skeptics (who we like to call negative Nancys) and falling stock prices may give people the wrong idea about 3D printing. There are plenty of reasons to be excited about 3D printing, especially in the form of successful implementation into finished products. 3D-printed car parts are being used in the manufacturing of vehicles. While 3D printing may have once been viable only as a prototype printer, parts that are being produced in this way are more than capable of being used in end products.

Here are some statistics from a PwC study concerning the implementation speed of 3D printing:

• 31.4 percent of manufacturers are using 3D printing for prototyping, 6.6 are using it for end-product production, and 13.2 percent are using it for both; all three of these figures are considerably higher than they were in 2014.
• 17.4 percent are experimenting with 3D printing - down from 2014, when 28.9 percent claimed to be experimenting with 3D printing.
• 42 percent of manufacturers feel that 3D printing will be used in high-volume production within the next 3-5 years.

Granted, it’s important to take into consideration the repercussions that mass-producing 3D printing machines will have on the manufacturing industry. While the costs of 3D-printed goods are dramatically lower, will this disrupt the status-quo of how traditional supply chains work?

Furthermore, there is some concern over how 3D printing will affect intellectual property. As the demand for 3D printing technology increases, the costs will decrease, and the results of this innovation will become more apparent. Then there’s the problem of meeting the required quality and retaining enough speed to efficiently make use of the 3D printing technology. These uncertainties are why organizations are slowly moving toward implementing 3D printing, rather than jumping the gun and diving right in.

We’ve all been in a situation where we’re watching our inbox waiting for someone to send an email back. However, you might be limiting your own success by making your emails be too long, too wordy, or even too brief. According to a study by Boomerang, there are several ways to make your emails more viewer-friendly, and it all starts by analyzing what you’re currently doing with your outbound communications.

Ransomware is so common in the world of online threats that even the FBI has labeled it a massive threat to businesses of all kinds. Unlike other types of malware, ransomware has a unique return on investment that’s measurable and highly lucrative for hackers. A new variant of ransomware called Maktub Locker lures victims into a false sense of security by tailoring phishing emails to match their street address.

Today, more than two billion people use a smartphone. By 2020, experts predict that the smartphone market will reach over 70 percent of the planet’s population. In fact, more people own a smartphone today than have ever owned a PC, and more actual computing is done today using smartphone technology than using any other method! Driving this mobile revolution is the fact that smartphones have become affordable and present consumers with a wide array of computing options.

To become a grammar expert takes years of education--a luxury that few modern workers have. Thankfully, there are tools available online that can make anybody a grammar expert. One such tool is Grammarly, a free Chrome extension and web-based app.

Every piece of software released by Microsoft has an expiration date. Known as the End of Life event, this is when Microsoft ceases to support the software. It’s imperative that you stay on top of EOL dates for the sake of your company’s operations and data security. Take for example the dozens of software titles that expired just this past April.

Data storage has always been an important part of the business world, but it’s one of many areas where innovation has yielded overwhelming results. Technology that exists today could never have been created 50, or even 20 years ago.

One of the many ways that businesses improve productivity is by issuing employees multiple monitors for work purposes. Just like any benefit, though, there are some disadvantages to watch out for when using multiple monitors. Here are just a few of them.

The appeal of a do-it-yourself project is that you’re the one doing the work. With the Do It Yourself (DIY) approach, whatever it is you're working on, you know for sure that it’s getting the attention it deserves. This is why it can be rather unnerving to have someone who you don’t fully know or trust work on your stuff. This is especially the case when it comes to your company’s technology.

Let’s face it; the office is a pretty distracting place most of the time. You have people in meetings, discussions happening around every corner, the phone ringing every thirty seconds, and emails hitting your inbox left and right. With so much happening around you, how in the world are you supposed to get anything done?

Does your organization use Google Apps for Business? It’s likely you use Google Contacts to store contacts. It’s an ideal tool for business professionals who are constantly on the move, but the real value that it presents is its instantaneous access to work contacts through Android devices. For this week’s tip, we’ll walk you through how to import and export your Google Contacts to a different Google, Outlook, or Apple account.

Artificial intelligence is still a long way off, but this doesn’t stop people from trying to make major advancements in how AI thinks. Take, for example, a Japanese novella (a short novel) co-written by AI that almost won the Hoshi Shinichi Award literary prize. That’s the key word here, though: almost. It seems that AI still has quite a bit of progress to make before it can effectively replicate human creativity.

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