Datalyst Blog

This might sound familiar for some of you, especially if you are in the construction, engineering, or architecture business, or any other industry that has pretty demanding computing needs.

Some industries require better hardware to handle the demanding software and work that needs to be done. Typical office workstations and infrastructure might work great for typical offices, but when you are working with AutoCAD, handling massive floor plans, accessing and sharing complex documents, and trying to get it all done within budget, the lower-end just isn’t going to cut it.

Making solid business decisions can sometimes be confusing. Not that you try to make anything other than good decisions, but a lot of business is, and has always been, trial and error; and, you may know this from experience, error happens to be a big part of it. Today, we thought we would discuss what goes into good technology decisions and how many times it comes down to the results. 

Out of all the technologies that have been introduced into the mainstream over the last few years, artificial intelligence—or AI—leads the pack in terms of innovation. Far from the science fiction of autonomous machines bent on the extinction of humanity, AI is now found in many examples of beneficial software. Let’s consider some ways that businesses can now use AI to their considerable advantage.

In a recent post, we talked about the various image formats you should use when sharing images over email or online. The goal is to generate an image (or images) that are the smallest file size possible to make them easy to share and quick to download, without reducing the overall quality of the image.

As face-to-face communication continues to be on the back-burner, tools such as your website, social media, and other online conferencing solutions allow your business to remain in the public eye. Yet, as you rely on more bandwidth to continue to be productive, you may find you aren’t as productive as you like. Now is the time to consider a high-speed internet consultation to determine where the bottleneck in your productivity lies.

Whether you are sharing them online, emailing them to a colleague, or putting them on your own website, it’s important to understand a few basics when it comes to image files and sizes. This guide will hopefully save you a lot of hassle when trying to email large images, update your website, and use social media, whether it be for your own personal use or for your business.

As vaccines are showing promising results, we finally seem to see a light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. While it is still early to “look back on” the pandemic (after all, we are far from out of the woods), it makes sense to look to the future and consider how the lessons we’ve learned will continue to impact us—and this is perhaps nowhere truer than in the workplace.

2020 was… well, 2020… so it really isn’t any surprise that those businesses that made it to 2021 aren’t quite out of the woods yet. The many difficulties and challenges that 2020 brought will carry over into this year, many of them pertaining to information technology and how businesses utilize it. Let’s take a few moments to anticipate how these IT challenges will manifest this year.

Know it or not, your business takes in and creates a lot of data. Most of this data, like most items and information, isn’t worth much. Some of it, however, is crucial to your business’ ability to operate. If a situation comes along where you are faced with the prospect of losing your data, it will be much better to have a backup plan in place than not.

When looking to present an idea, the first two options people think of are often to use a video, or to use a slideshow (typically, citing Microsoft PowerPoint). Our question is, why pick? Let’s go over how simple it is to embed a YouTube video right into your next PowerPoint presentation whether you’re using PowerPoint 365 or PowerPoint 2016.

Communication is key to any good relationship, and this is even more true when that relationship is based in a business setting. This is the case whether you’re referring to the correspondence between an organization and its clientele, or the collaboration between employees as they complete their tasks. Let’s consider four things small businesses can and should do to create a communications strategy that encourages their success.

Is your business going from crisis to crisis? Are you unsure if your technology will help or hurt your business prospects today? How about tomorrow? It doesn’t have to be this way. When your business invests in comprehensive IT support, the technology you rely upon will be managed and maintained. Ultimately, fewer issues translate to greater uptime and productivity. Take a moment to learn why it is time for your business to invest in comprehensive IT support.

To preserve your cybersecurity, you need to have a comprehensive view of everything involved with your technology—and we do mean everything. Let’s consider a recent close call, involving the Democratic Republic of Congo that exemplifies this perfectly that could have potentially exposed millions of Internet users to serious threats.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show is one of the best looks at some of the best consumer technology that is coming down the pipeline over the next couple of years. Most of the technology won’t be readily available for a few years, and a lot of it may not even come to market, but one aspect of the event that is interesting is that for the first time it is completely virtual.

Businesses use a vast array of technology for several different purposes. Some businesses use a muted strategy, while others depend on a technology-centered strategy to completely run their business’ operations. With businesses really trying to maximize their profitability, many turn to the automated tools offered by technology to cut their human resources costs. This month we thought we’d discuss some of the basic technology that even the smallest businesses are using to get ahead in a time when it is easy to fall behind. 

2020 has wound down and the new year has spun up, let’s take a moment to consider going beyond the usual New Year’s Resolutions of weight loss, quitting smoking, and being a better person—all of which are certainly well worth considering. Instead, let’s take a moment to think of ways to better your business, the foundation of your day to day routine. Here are three things you can do to make 2021 a better year than the last one was.

The productivity suite is one of the most utilized software combos going. Usually it comes with a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a note taking program, and a presentation creator. There are other pieces of software included in some of today’s most dynamic options, but for our purposes we are going to limit it to these. 

It isn’t often that you’ll hear a managed service provider say something like, “There’s no school like the old school.” In many ways, however, the basic principles of a solid business IT strategy haven’t changed all that much… despite the momentous changes that we’ve witnessed in terms of the technology we use. Let’s consider some of these principles, and how they’ve changed over time (if at all).

The new year is upon us and after the debacle that 2020 was, it is extremely welcome. If you are like us, you have a new set of goals that you’ve created for yourself and are probably looking to improve your professional and personal well-being. One way to do that is to ensure that your accounts are secure. Today, we will be going through how to update your password with Microsoft.

Are you backing up your data regularly? With ransomware attacks increasing, your backup is your best defense, but only if it's done right. Take a moment to see if you're following best practices to back up and retrieve your data in case of a disaster.