Washington Works Blog

As a business owner, you have plenty to worry about, and your technology doesn’t do you any favors. It’s difficult to oversee the responsibilities of managing technology like workstations, server units, and mobile devices, alongside the ordinary demands of your job. What a lot of organizations don’t realize is that they can improve operations and make their jobs easier by outsourcing the responsibility of technology management to IT professionals.

There are many ways to share a file between two computers. Being familiar with multiple options will certainly come in handy, especially when your preferred method of file sharing isn’t an option (like when you can’t find your flash drive, or maybe you lose Internet connection). For this week’s tip, here are four options to help your business more effectively share files.

It’s fascinating to keep an eye on the latest technological developments, and the excitement really builds when concepts once deemed farfetched make their way onto the marketplace. Here are four technologies that we’re super excited to get our hands on!

As cars become more technologically advanced and reliant on computers, they become more likely targets for malware and cyber attacks. However, as researchers from Kaspersky have uncovered in an investigation into an assortment of connected-car mobile apps, car manufacturers may not be as committed to ensuring the security of their vehicles as drivers may want.

When was the last time that your organization had an unexpected technology expense blast your IT budget out of the sky? Surprise issues that you don’t plan for could potentially derail your budget for months, or even years, depending on the severity of it. Having a clear idea of what your IT service plan covers is a great way to make sure that you don’t get hit by surprise billing.

In 2011, the world was introduced to IBM’s supercomputer Watson after it handily won the television quiz show Jeopardy!. Since then, Watson has been utilized in a variety of helpful ways, including customer service for Macy’s and Geico, as well as medical research. Today, Watson is being tapped by H&R Block to assist the public with an issue that affects every American, their taxes.

While it’s certainly a bummer to have your smartphone stolen, it’s even worse if the thief accesses your data. To help prevent this nightmare scenario, security professionals have developed some clever solutions.

Let’s say you’ve got an email that you really need to crank out from home, and pronto. So, you whip out your laptop to get started, and that’s when you spot the menacing eyes of a toddler from across the room. What do you do? Is it even possible to use a mobile device once a toddler has it in their greedy little sights? For this week’s tip, we’ll explore your options.

What would you do if your business were suddenly struck by something which threatened its very existence? Do you have a plan to make sure that your business survives well past the expiration date assigned by natural disasters, hardware failure, user error, or hacking attacks? One of the most important parts of running a business is managing risk, and implementing a business continuity plan is a great way to focus on the preservation of your organization.

Many businesses are searching for ways to go green. Most of the ones that do are trying to cut out their reliance on paper and printing. This is strategic thinking, of course, since the cost of printer toner has skyrocketed over the years. Today the most affordable printer ink on the market still comes in at an astounding $13 per ounce; or, slightly more than Dom Perignon. This is why businesses that are looking to cut costs, as well as embrace environmentally-friendly initiatives, are going paperless.

The Internet of Things may have just entered social consciousness, but people have been trying to add Internet functionality to devices for quite some time. One instance of this is the development and manufacture of smart car technology. In the same way as our services are designed to proactively monitor and maintain your business’ network, a smart car has been developed largely as an completely connected automobile that allows car owners to worry less about their car and to get the most out of their investment and driving experiences.

You know better than anyone that managing your business isn’t something to be taken lightly. Keeping your technology in proper working order is just the icing on the proverbial cake, making the task of managing your business even more difficult. If you’re using normal break-fix IT services, this might be the case. Alternatively, managed IT services aren’t designed to burden you.

Not all companies are prepared to deal with the costs associated with downtime. Any situation in which your organization cannot access important information or can’t operate with efficiency is something which needs to be prepared for; otherwise, you risk more than you know. We want to help protect your business when it needs it most.

No one said business was going to be easy. One of the most frustrating aspects can be employee complacency. In fact, with the advent of the Internet and with more jobs trending toward service, you are finding that people are constantly looking outside their current organization for professional development. With employee turnover costing businesses everywhere substantial capital, retaining your proficient employees must be a priority.

It’s National Clean Out Your Computer Day! To kick off this important day, we’d like to remind business owners that this is a valuable opportunity to make sure that you’re taking good care of one of your greatest assets: your company’s technology. Let’s go over some of the best ways that you can optimize the performance of your office computers.

Have you ever tried to teach a kid how to do something? Chances are that if it’s not super fun and engaging, kids will probably ignore what you’re saying. While it might be difficult to emphasize the importance of a quality career choice to kids, you can get them moving in the right direction by teaching them valuable technology skills like programing and robotics. Thankfully, with educational apps and tools, this is much easier to accomplish than, say, ten years ago.

Budgeting accurately for your long-term IT needs requires an intimate knowledge about technology and IT trends. Compared to other department budgets that are easy to compile by making a few simple adjustments to the previous year’s numbers, your IT budget must take into account the depreciation of your IT equipment for replacement purposes, as well as the cost of procuring the new, cutting-edge solutions that are shaping your industry. Do you have the technical knowledge to come up with an accurate IT budget? If you don’t, you’ll want to employ the services of an IT consultant.

One of the most high-profile hacking attacks in the United States struck last year when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was breached. 464,000 Social Security numbers were swiped; enough to file 101,000 tax returns using false personal identification numbers. Every organization can learn how to better protect themselves during tax return season, especially since you have so much on the line every year.

For the modern business it’s important to have software that is both simple to use and powerful enough to meet your needs. Nowadays, there are cloud-based platforms that come with storage, communication options, and many of the enterprise-level productivity applications that drive your organization’s productivity. Two of these, Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google’s G-Suite bring substantial value and flexibility to the table where there was once only expense.

Whether you are looking to prevent theft, curb employee time-wasting, or get a handle on workplace efficiency, security cameras are a solution that prevents and protects you from a wide variety of issues.