Ferrum Technology Services Blog

Due to the many different forms of digital communication, you may check your email less than ever before. However, just because you may not use your email account very often, it doesn't mean that a hacker will leave it alone. Every email account is full of valuable information and should be protected with the strongest security measures available.

You've seen them around everywhere. Every time you watch TV, look at a poster, listen to the news, or have a conversation with a teenager, you'll be exposed to the term "hashtag". What are hashtags exactly? What do they do? Why should you care about them? How can they help your business? #readmoretofindout

We marvel at how easy it is to stream media over the Internet and turn our PC or mobile device into an entertainment terminal to the world's vast entertainment library. Having every movie at our fingertips is a new experience, but the technology of instant media is over 100 years old, and its development is a testimony to human innovation.

After you've finished with that incriminating file (you know which file we're talking about), you will drag and drop it into the Recycling Bin. You may think that just because you selected "Empty Recycling Bin" that the evidence is gone forever, but that's not exactly how the Recycling Bin works. You will need a more permanent solution to completely cover your tracks.

If you take a look around, it's a mystery that the human race is tied to their technology. Many of us use smartphones and tablets every day to get our work done, to communicate with friends and family, to feed us information, to help us be more efficient in everyday life, to aid us in our hobbies, and to entertain us. In their research, Gartner recently found that over 1.2 billion smart devices were purchased in 2013 alone, opening up new market opportunities for technology innovators to explore. XD Design is certainly rising to the occasion with an impressive line of solar-powered battery chargers.

It's a rare occasion that a company grows to have as much prowess over multiple industries as Google has. Since their launch in 1998, their mission has been "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." By launching products and services centered on this purpose, Google has grown to set the world's standard of information and how it's managed. What can your business learn from them?

A lot of businesses have been taking advantage of Wi-Fi wireless networking to increase mobility around the office for staff. Most businesses seem to understand that their Wi-Fi network needs to be password protected to keep outsiders from getting in, but most businesses often make the mistake in using WEP security on their wireless network instead of a more secure solution.

Previously, we wrote the blog post, "The Digital Payment War, Round 1", where we looked at the differences between the old school PayPal and the new school Square Cash methods of digital payment. While we didn't officially declare a winner, Google Wallet and Coin are a couple more contenders to our "Best Online Digital Payment Method Ever in History" award.

Have you ever been frustrated by not being able to edit information locked up inside of a PDF? Now, with Microsoft Word 2013, the issue is resolved, making it super easy to edit text, tables, and graphics within a PDF file.

With the introduction of Microsoft's Kinect and Apple's iPhone 5s, biometrics has exploded! Both of these tools are being utilized for security purposes to lock others out of your device and accounts. Biometrics for these devices are also being employed to grant you access to your technology. As biometrics becomes more popular, you are sure to see it used for your business in the not too distant future.

IT support is not without its stereotypes. These stereotypes can make for some great humor, as seen in Jimmy Fallon's Saturday Night Live character, Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy. Behind every Nick Burns stereotype is a truth about poor IT service. Let's take a look at Nick to show you how we are nothing like him.

Awareness to business trends are important for any business owner. The savviest businessman finds a way to use the trending topics to improve their enterprise's operational efficiency. The trends of the past for small business computing seem to be focused on the establishment and practical use of technologies that are relatively new, but are in full practice in the business world. These technologies include the manufacturing and worldwide distribution of devices that enhance a user's connectivity by presenting powerful interfaces to take advantage of their incredible mobility.

Have you received an invoice from a company called DNS Services located in Vancouver, WA?  Take it or leave it, our suggestion is DON'T PAY IT!

Android vs. iOS, it's a battle of the brands that evokes passionate responses from both sides of the technology isle. In 2013, the battle intensified as Apple launched iOS7, and Android gained significant ground as the standard OS installed on a barrage of devices. As the dust settles from a competitive year we're left asking, "Who won?"

There is a fake fax-to-email styled email which claims to have a new incoming fax attached.  The from address or to address contains a variation of Incoming.Fax6@ [yourdomain].

It's no secret that businesses often have limited space and resources. The problem is that you need your IT infrastructure in order to do business, and when you don't have a dedicated server room, you have to house your server in a common area. This presents an annoyance since a running server sounds like an air conditioning unit on full blast.

It's no secret that social media has become an integral part of any business' marketing strategy. Twitter, being one of the top social media outlets, should certainly not be avoided. There is much potential to be unlocked by your business by using Twitter.

Companies that are actively seeking growth would be well advised to have a backup plan in place in case of emergency. Businesses that don't have a solid continuity plan in place will seldom survive accidents and disasters. Without a business continuity plan, your company may be forced to operate without using computers. Could your company survive?

According to IDC, the fastest growing sector in the new cloud IT market is Infrastructure as a service (IaaS). This consists of providing users virtual machines and other resources to manage tasks over the Internet, and it's scalable to the user's needs. Additional services offered over the cloud include firewalls, load balancers, IP addresses, virtual-machine disk image library, raw (block) and file-based storage, virtual local area networks (VLANs), and software bundles. With IaaS, the cost will reflect the resources allocated and consumed, making it an attractive option for businesses wanting to take advantage of these services without having to purchase and maintain their own IT infrastructure.

The Internet has become an extremely efficient shopping tool for consumers. Nearly all available products can be found quickly and easily online. Traditionally, when shoppers settle on what they'd like to purchase, they charge their credit cards, but a new school of digital payment has provided a more secure alternative. How will this affect your business?