Washington Works Blog

Businesses are using more data than ever. Unfortunately, the data is usually spread out over different systems. Typically, this would make managing this data extraordinarily difficult, but with virtualization, the modern business that wants to use its data, can, efficiently. 

There is no doubt that you have come across the virtual assistant (or voice assistant). Whether you have it on a smartphone or you use it via a digital speaker in your home, you have probably spent some time using some type of virtual assistant. 

Most businesses nowadays require a server in order to operate properly, but these critical pieces of infrastructure aren’t immune to issues. Here, we’ll go over a few common reasons that you may experience a server crash.

Windows 7 is only days away from being officially retired by Microsoft. The software company has done all it can to try to educate users about the end of the OS, which has its last support update on January 14, 2020, but won’t be getting any more. As of this writing there are still nearly 25 percent of computers running Windows 7. Let’s take a look at why it is imperative that you upgrade or find a solution to get out from under the Windows 7 OS. 

Today is the first day of the third decade of the 21st century. For some, it’s just another year, but for others it seems almost impossible that we’ve reached this point without floating cars and manned missions to Jupiter. Fifty years ago, some of the technology that is used in the course of doing business was simply fiction or conjecture. We thought it would be neat to take a look at some of the technological changes made since 1970.

A big part of running a successful operation is knowing how to make the most of your resources, minimizing your operating costs while still generating optimal sources of revenue and other income. One way to do so is by making the most of the hardware you currently have - such as your servers.

The smartphone has become the most utilized computing device in the world. As a result, consumers are looking for the very best of them to get the functionality they demand. The current set of flagship smartphones that are available provide all types of benefits for business, for commerce, and for networking. Today, we’re going to take a look at the best phones you can buy heading into 2020. 

It is no secret that a computer that doesn’t seem to want to behave (or seems to experience constant issues) is something that most people just want to replace, no questions asked. However, by nature of how computing devices are put together, it is entirely possible that your device could simply be in need of a (much less expensive) repair.

If you use an iPhone, iPad, or any other Apple device, you’ve probably used iMessage. iMessage is the popular built-in messaging app. It’s Apple’s version of the text message, but it’s packed with great features that iPhone users have grown very fond of. We looked around online for ways to access your iMessage in Windows, but only found workarounds that compromise your security.

We’re going to discuss these workarounds, but we highly recommend you do NOT attempt them. These are two of the most common procedures people have come up with to try to get iMessage to work on a Windows 10 PC, but both put you at a security risk.

Businesses require a lot of their Internet connections, especially if they’re using technologies like VoIP, screen-sharing, and/or webinar platforms. If you’re looking to incorporate these features, you need to be sure you have enough bandwidth to support them. We’re looking at a few reasons that your bandwidth matters, and how to tell if you have enough for your needs.

Businesses should value organization, collaboration, and usability. There are few tools greater than what Microsoft has offered for nearly the last 30 years to fulfill these values. Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and so many more great tools are available to your business. Today we thought we would go over what other useful tools are available through Microsoft, and how your business can utilize each of them. 

Smartphones are a marvel of modern ingenuity. After looking at employee smartphone use as a problem for much of the past few years, today’s businesses have begun to amend that strategy and are now using employee devices to their advantage. With such a large percentage of today’s workers actively using smartphones, it only makes sense for businesses to try and incorporate their employees’ devices into their day-to-day operational strategy. Today, we’ll take a look at smartphones and how they’ve managed to go from nuisance to necessity. 

In managing business technology, we are always talking about downtime--how expensive downtime is, how downtime hurts productivity, how there are a multitude of separate situations that can cause downtime. That kind of doom and gloom may not get you to act, but it may just put you off. Today, instead of downtime, we thought we would talk about uptime. 

Technology is a requirement in today’s businesses - but just having technology isn’t nearly enough. You need to make sure that you are performing the proper maintenance activities as well, to prolong the useful life of your solutions. Here, we’ll review a few basics to keeping your technology solutions ready for your use… and how we can help with that.

The more time that passes the more files your business accumulates. These files need to be stored in a place where your staff has access to them. Since a lot of today’s work is collaborative, finding the right file sharing and collaboration solution is extremely important for the growing SMB. Today, we will tell you some things you need to do to maintain efficient file management systems.

With all the communication options available today, it can still be hard to beat the convenience and simplicity of the telephone. However, the phone is far from a perfect solution - it can be expensive, for one. However, what if there was a way for you to get a fully-featured telephone service with a variety of tools, without having to pay an arm and a leg?

We typically use this blog to share information about the technology that a business should be leveraging - but in this blog, we’ve decided to focus on a different group that is increasingly reliant on technology: students. As these pupils will someday make up the workforce and almost certainly utilize technology on a daily basis, it is important that their education reflects this increase in their curriculums. Here, we’ll consider some of the effects (good and bad) that this has had.

Whether it’s RFID sensors, mobile devices, or commercial goods, the Internet of Things (IOT) is an exponentially expanding industry. Which makes us think, “What can we expect in the near future for IOT?” Today, we will answer this very question.

Let me ask you a simple question: how many cell phones have you had over the years? For some of us, upgrades are a yearly occurrence. For others possibly bi-yearly. Have you ever wondered where your old cell phone goes after it is out of your hands? 

Deep web and dark web. What’s the difference? Perhaps you’ve been using these words interchangeably. The dark web has a reputation for being the most toxic place on the internet, and for quite a few good reasons. Today we will dive deep into the dark web and why this reputation has been formed.