Washington Works Blog

There’s a dangerous misconception that a lot of business owners have about data backup. Too often, an SMB will have a data backup solution in place and the business owner will feel like they’re fully prepared to handle a data loss disaster--without looking into the data recovery capabilities of their backup solution (or the lack thereof). This kind of oversight can lead to a very costly surprise when a disaster strikes and there’s no easy way to restore the lost data.

Windows 10’s updates have provided users with entirely new ways to receive notifications, including the ability to sync their notifications via Android’s Cortana app. However, you’ll be happy to hear that you can control how these notifications appear. We’ll walk you through some basic steps on how to customize your Windows 10 notifications.

Imagine that you are the CEO of a mass media organization whose Twitter has just been hacked and was now posting 20 spam-filled tweets every second. You’ve just put yourselves in the shoes of Tim Armstrong, CEO of now-Verizon-subsidiary AOL.

You may have heard of digital eye strain. The Vision Council defines it as “the physical discomfort felt after two or more hours in front of a digital screen and is associated with the close to mid-range distance of digital screens.” As annoying as this condition is, in some cases, it has actually developed into something far worse, like temporary blindness.

Moving to the cloud is not an easy task, and it’s certainly not a process that will be the same for every SMB. Therefore, you need to be open to adaptation as the process wears on. Unplanned-for issues might make it difficult to adhere 100 percent to your plans, so if you can’t adapt to that which you can’t predict, your cloud migration is doomed to failure.

If you have the most recent addition to Samsung’s growing collection of smartphones, we hope you haven’t grown too attached to it. The company is recalling the Galaxy Note 7 on reports that the batteries explode. This event is largely considered one of the more high-profile recalls in the history of consumer technology.

Intel recently announced their next line of laptop processors, and with that single act, caused no small amount of frustration and confusion among the IT market. After claims that they were breaking from their traditional schedule of releasing a new processor each September and improving upon it later, Intel has gone ahead and released a new processor architecture instead of maintaining their Skylake processor from last year.

Modern office technology is breaking down office barriers left and right. With the proper tools, workers can perform their daily duties anytime, anywhere. This trend is prompting businesses to hire remote workers in order to find the talent they need without being limited by geographical location. Unfortunately, finding a good candidate for a remote worker is easier said than done.

Hackers continue to innovate and cause trouble for businesses of all industries and sizes. One of the more interesting recent tactics includes utilizing a malicious Twitter account to command a botnet of Android devices to do its bidding. Twitoor is considered to be the first real threat to actively use a social network in this manner, making this a major cause for concern.

During your time in the business world, you may have heard about the Dark Web. It’s a place that’s filled with illegal activity, with some of the most notable being online marketplaces where credentials and personal records can be sold to the highest bidder. However, there’s much more to the Dark Web than meets the eye.

An active Google user will inevitably accumulate a stockpile of photos and videos via their account’s Google Photos app. For this week’s tip, we’ll show you how to download all of this media to a local device.

Today’s fast-paced work environment demands multitasking and juggling various projects at once. Thankfully, there’s a lot of great technologies designed to make workloads more manageable. If you’ve not yet looked into utilizing automation apps for your business, you may be surprised to learn how they can improve efficiency.

Hosting an in-house IT infrastructure may give you the reassurance that all of your servers and network equipment are being cared for properly, but it’s important to realize that your time is better spent elsewhere, like running your business. If you’re unsure if you’re providing the necessary maintenance and management for your mission-critical hardware solutions, virtualization can present a valuable opportunity.

Do you find yourself traveling for your business? Be it for a conference, a series of meetings that require your attendance, or some other reason, you may very likely need to spend some time on the road; time that could be spent on tasks your business needs to function. Despite the lack of a traditional workspace, this time spent traveling doesn’t necessarily need to be time wasted. Thanks to the technology of today, you have the ability to remain productive while mobile.

The idea of speaking to your device and having it perform tasks is hardly a new one. Siri and Google Now have long dominated this industry. Microsoft released Cortana in an attempt to enter the voice assistant race, but with Windows 10’s anniversary update, more harm than good could come from using Cortana.

Do you remember how your bank issued you a new debit or credit card with a built-in, security-enhancing chip? There are now ATMs specially designed for use with these chips. Unfortunately, the same technology that was originally meant to secure your finances can also be used against you in the form of fraudulent cash withdrawals.

The benefits of utilizing smartphones in the workplace are many and obvious. Yet, it may be in the best interests of some companies to ban smartphones altogether, and instead go with older-model flip phones. As counterproductive as this sounds, more companies are saying “out with the new in with the old.”

Businesses rely on hardware, like workstations, servers, mobile devices, and more, to keep operations moving forward. However, managing these knowledge-intensive machines can demand time and resources that are finite for SMBs. If you’re challenged by the management and deployment of hardware, let us guide you through the process of doing so.

Technology grows more mobile with each passing moment, and emojis have popped up in places that nobody could have dreamt of. In particular, business communications have experienced a surge of emojis, but how (and why) is this the case? Aren’t emojis unprofessional? Shouldn’t they have no place in the business world? Well, let’s explore this a bit.

With the opportunity to track metrics becoming more readily available for all types of businesses, some organizations invest heavily into time-tracking software and other KPIs that they believe will help their team be more efficient in the workplace. However, this might be having a negative effect on the quality of work being performed. Irv Shapiro, CEO of DialogTech, suggests that, instead of tracking time, employers should be tracking results.