Desktop and Laptop Backups – Why they are Important
Posted by on Apr 4, 2018
Desktop and Laptop Backups – what are they and why are they important? Why does your small business need desktop backups? Today we’re going to discuss this in-depth. Best of all, thanks to cloud services, you’ll find out it’s easier than ever to have complete, secure, and up-to-date laptop and desktop backups. Laptop and Desktop Backups are Important Historically, small businesses have backed up…
Read MoreWinter Park IT Support
Posted by on Apr 2, 2018
IT Support and IT Project Consulting for the Winter Park, Florida Area Headquartered in beautiful Winter Park, Florida, Virtual Operations is the premier provider of IT support and IT project consulting for the Central Florida area. We’re a local company, and we specialize in providing tech support for small business. Why does being a local company matter? Because we find that being face to…
Read MoreRemote Access for Small Business Networks
Posted by on Dec 6, 2017
How To Provide Remote Access for Small Business Networks Today we’re going to talk about providing secure remote access to your business’ network. Why would you want to do this? To allow employees to work remotely – and to let them have access to the servers, applications, and file shares they use regularly. This is great not only for occasional use outside of the…
Read MoreThe Importance of a Long-Term Technology Strategy
Posted by on Nov 26, 2017
What is a technology strategy? In this article, we’ll discuss a critical strategic planning component of your business – the technology strategy. First let’s define what it is. The technology strategy is a long-term roadmap by which the business will evolve its technology base and future tech acquisitions to improve the business’ ability to make money. When describing the technology strategy, we use the…
Read MoreComputer Security – Why Defense in Depth is the Best Approach
Posted by on Nov 12, 2017
Computer Security – Why Defense in Depth is the Best Approach Here on “Patch Tuesday”, we’re going to discuss an important topic that we touched on briefly last week. We believe “Defense in Depth”, as applied to computer security, is the best way to mitigate the risk of security exploits and breaches. We’re going to describe the rationale and specifics of this multi-layered approach….
Read MoreWindows 10 Fall Creators Update is Here
Posted by on Oct 15, 2017
Fall Creators Update for Windows 10 Arrives 10/17/2017 On Tuesday October 17, 2017, Microsoft released the next major upgrade to Windows 10 – the Fall Creators Update. It’s also known as version 1709, and is a follow-on upgrade from the Anniversary Update (1607) and the original Creators Update (1703) that came out earlier in March of this year. This is a major upgrade –…
Read MoreEquifax Hack – Takeaways for Small Business
Posted by on Sep 10, 2017
Key Points About the Equifax Hack (Data Breach) for Small Business As you’ve probably heard, this week Equifax Inc. (one of the “big-three” credit bureaus) announced a cybersecurity incident that involved a data breach of 143 million U.S. consumer records. A data breach is a form of computer hack where confidential or private data is exposed – accessed, viewed, or stolen by unauthorized individuals….
Read MoreHow to Provide Tech Support for Small Business
Posted by on Sep 2, 2017
How to provide Tech Support for Small Business – All you need to know In this article, we’re going to outline the essential and best practices of providing tech support for a small business. What’s tech support? It’s the ongoing service to ensure that your business is utilizing technology and actually getting the value of that technology. Computers, servers, applications, and networks are tools…
Read MoreSmall Business Phone Service Options
Posted by on Aug 26, 2017
Phone Service for the Small Business Today we are going to talk about phone service for the small business. Much has changed over the last 10 years regarding phone systems – there are now more options than ever – from onsite PBX (Private Branch Exchange) systems to cloud based phone solutions that integrate with your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool of choice. Let’s talk…
Read MoreTop 5 Reasons Your Small Business Should Utilize Open Source Software
Posted by on Aug 11, 2017
Why your small business should use Open Source Software Is your small business leveraging Open Source Software for maximum benefit? That’s what we are going to discuss in this article. We consider open source software to be a great complement to traditionally licensed commercial software for maximizing value and efficiency in the small business. In many cases, it’s also the best way to accomplish…
Read MoreData Privacy and GDPR
Posted by on Jul 22, 2017
GDPR and Data Privacy The GDPR is coming! What’s the GDPR? It’s the General Data Protection Regulation. It is a tough new standard for data privacy – protection for personal data such as citizen names, email addresses, home addresses, etc. It’s a new regulation that attempts to unify and strengthen personal data protection for all individuals within the European Union (EU). Just because your…
Read MoreFeatures of Office 365 – Microsoft Bookings
Posted by on Jul 17, 2017
Microsoft Bookings Need an easy to use appointment booking solution for your small business? One that’s easy to use by your clients and your staff? Read on to find out more about Microsoft Bookings. One of the things we love about Office 365 – it just keeps getting better and better. The existing features have new capabilities, and more is being added all the…
Read MoreBig Data for Small Business
Posted by on Jul 8, 2017
Big Data for Small Business By now you’ve probably heard about “Big Data” and the benefits companies are deriving. Big businesses such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and others gather key operational and business insights by being able to quickly and efficiently filter through the mountains of data their customers generate every single day (or hour!). Trends can be identified and turned into actionable business…
Read MoreHow to Host Video on Your Small Business Website
Posted by on Jun 10, 2017
In the past, we’ve talked about how to create an effective small business website. We mentioned a lot of good points, including the need for quality content. What we didn’t talk about is an up and coming category of content that is very popular, especially with the younger generations – video. It’s easy to write and maintain text content for your website, but how…
Read MoreWannaCry Ransomware – Update for Business Owners
Posted by on May 13, 2017
WannaCry Ransomware – Updates and Information National news today is reporting on the “WannaCry” ransomware. This is a serious computer security issue, and this article will provide information on this threat. NOTE: This information is current as of Saturday 5/13/2017, 10:30 AM Eastern. What is “WannaCry”? WannaCry is a code name for a variant of “ransomware” malware that is currently circulating on the Internet….
Read MoreProcess Is Important
Posted by on Apr 11, 2017
The Importance of Process For any small business, process is important. Business related tasks must be done quickly, accurately, and in a repeatable fashion. Your customers and clients expect this. But process isn’t just for the front office, your back-office tasks can benefit from process as well. Whether onboarding a new employee, setting up new equipment, or performing inventory having an efficient process has…
Read MoreSmall Business – Top 7 Tips for an Effective Website
Posted by on Apr 1, 2017
Today we’re going to talk about a topic that applies to any small business – having an effective website. Having an effective website is a must. A well designed, functional website that ranks well in Google search results is like a free billboard, working for you 24 hours per day, bringing new prospects and leads into your inbox. The result you want is clear,…
Read MoreApple iCloud – Protect Accounts Related to Business
Posted by on Mar 26, 2017
Today in the news, a hacker group has claimed access to millions of Apple iCloud accounts, and is threatening to wipe the contents unless Apple pays a ransom by April 4th. This falls into the broad category of a “ransomware” attack, although it doesn’t involve a malware, it’s a cloud services compromise. As a business owner, we recommend you take the following action, if…
Read MoreSecurity Tip – Spotting Phishing Emails
Posted by on Mar 21, 2017
Nearly everyone is familiar with “phishing” emails. What’s “phishing”? It’s a technique attackers use to try and trick you into providing private or confidential information. We see these often. Here’s a typical example, received today in my Hotmail account. Take a look, and see how many red flags and trouble signs you can spot. Then scroll down for the answers. Overall, I’ll get this…
Read MoreVirtual Servers – Best Practices for Your Business
Posted by on Mar 20, 2017
Virtual Servers – Best Practices for Your Business Today, we’ll talk a bit about best practices for virtualizing your servers. “Virtual” is an abstract concept – so we’ll provide a laymen’s explanation, and then we’ll focus on the benefits. This explanation is targeted to business owners and decision makers, not technical personnel. Firstly, why would we do this? Virtual servers are highly recommended over…
Read MoreBusiness Owners – What To Do After Your IT Person Resigns
Posted by on Mar 17, 2017
Business Owners – What To Do After Your IT Person Resigns Here’s a moment many small and medium business owners fear: When that critical IT person, who has accumulated years of knowledge of the inner workings of your company, has resigned. What do you do next? We’ll discuss the best steps you can take immediately. We’ll assume this person is probably your only IT…
Read MoreDisk Storage – Why the Expense?
Posted by on Mar 12, 2017
Disk Storage – Expensive when it’s done right – here’s why Here at Virtual Operations, Florida’s best managed services provider, we often field questions regarding disk storage – and why it’s a considerable expense. Today we’ll shed some light on this topic. We’re going to talk through an example of storing 1 Terabyte (1TB or 1,000 GB, or 1,000,000,000,000 bytes) of business-critical data. What…
Read MoreWikileaks “Vault 7” and What It Means For Business Owners
Posted by on Mar 9, 2017
Wikileaks “Vault 7” – Here’s what you need to know as a business owner All major news sources today are commenting on the “Vault 7” information being made public by WikiLeaks. We’re not going to ponder the geo-political and legal aspects of this leak, but rather provide comment on what it means for the average small to medium business. Update 4/9/2017: As promised, Wikileaks…
Read MoreTop 5 Reasons Your Business Should Be Using a Password Manager
Posted by on Mar 7, 2017
Today we are going to talk about why your business should require all employees to use a Password Manager. If you read our previous article on passwords, “Why Does My Password Have to Change?”, you already know we recommend the following password best practices for all businesses: Passwords should be long, complex, random strings of alphanumeric and special characters (!#@$*) – to eliminate the…
Read MoreRunning in the Cloud Doesn’t Eliminate the Need for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Posted by on Mar 1, 2017
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The Business Owner’s Guide – How To Fix Your Internet Issues
Posted by on Feb 26, 2017
In this article, we’ll discuss the options for making your Internet and network technology more reliable. We’re not going to deep dive into a lot of tech jargon – we’re going to provide a business-friendly overview of the steps you can take. Lastly, we’ll make some assumptions about the type of network gear we most often see for small to medium sized businesses here…
Read MoreWhy Does My Password Have to Change?
Posted by on Feb 22, 2017
Every business user is familiar with the toil and trouble of passwords – they’re long, they’re complicated, hard to type, and just about the time you can remember it – IT makes you change it. There are good reasons we do these things. In this article, we’ll review the reasons. It may not make your life any easier, but at least you’ll understand why…
Read MoreReal World Disaster Recovery Lessons – Flood!
Posted by on Jun 8, 2015
When it comes to disasters, businesses need to expect the unexpected. Can your critical computer equipment be flooded (and ruined by water damage) on the 4th floor of a high rise building? It can happen, and Virtual Operations recently had a “hands on” experience with exactly this situation. You may not realize it, but a modern office building has huge amounts of water in…
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