Sometimes when your workstation feels bogged down, a relatively cheap and simple hardware update can make all the difference in performance. Adding more memory can be a game changer for your computer. There are several factors that contribute to the speed of a PC: CPU/Processor The CPU handles all of calculations a computer performs. These days, consumer-class CPUs handle billions and even trillions of instructions per second. Dated processors can greatly influence the actual speed of a computer, but if your PC is fairly new (as in 1 or 2 years old, and possibly older for higher end builds) it’s likely not bottlenecking your performance. Today, CPUs are equipped with two, four, or even more cores, which means the CPU can handle more calculations exponentially and consume less electricity. RAM/Memory Random Access Memory (RAM) is basically the short-term memory of your computer. When your computer is loading and running applications, they get stored in the RAM. The RAM is much faster than the hard drive, so your computer doesn’t need to spin it’s wheels looking for specific files and parts of applications. The more RAM you have, the more “stuff” that can be stored in it. The faster your RAM, the faster your computer can sift through the data that gets temporarily pushed into it. Once your RAM is full, your computer will depend on the hard drive to retrieve information, and that’s where things get sluggish. Once you stop running a program, it will remove itself from the RAM to free up some space for everything else running. Hard Drive The hard drive is the storage device of a computer. For extremely high-end PCs, the hard drive is often the bottleneck. Hard drives, when compared to RAM, are very slow to access and write information. Once your computer needs to rely on your hard drive heavily for RAM, things are going to start getting slowed down. While it’s great that your PC can rely on your hard drive in this way for those times it needs some extra memory, it is likely this is the cause of the slowdown. Unfortunately, because hard drives are mechanical and have moving parts, there’s limitations to how fast science can make them perform. There are costly solid-state drives, but as a performance-improving factor on a standard workstation, typically solid state drives aren’t the cost-effective answer. There are software factors as well that can affect your PC speed. Malware and Spyware can bog down your system, and after a lot of use, temporary files can bog things down. Before upgrading hardware, you’ll want to have a technician run a quick evaluation on your PC – it’s possible a little cleanup can make all the difference in the world. Otherwise, the next step is upgrading the RAM. RAM is usually relatively cheap, even to double or triple your existing RAM with faster, higher performance memory. Often the cost of the new RAM itself will be between $50 and $100, and more than likely less than that, and that’s for a substantial increase, but it depends on your PC. Is your computer running slow? Does it get bogged down by the time you have all of your day-to-day applications open? Contact us at (585) 254-8710 for a quick evaluation to see if a simple, cost-effective upgrade […]
Since the rise of social media, businesses all around the world are taking to online marketing in order to keep up with competition. As social media progresses, more and more sites are offering new and innovative platforms designed for businesses to increase sales and brand recognition. Here are a few tools that Facebook has created to help business owners get their brand out to their target audience. Facebook Product Shop The Facebook Product Shop allows businesses to sell products and services directly from their Facebook page. All it takes is a few clicks, and you can have your business up and running. Facebook allows business owners to choose whether they want to let customers buy directly from Facebook, or if they want customers to be directed to their website in order to check out. Facebook Ads Facebook has one of the most innovative and easily customizable advertisement platform set up for business owners who want to get their brands in front of their target audience. Along with their traditional advertisements, which show on their target audiences News Feeds, Facebook has recently added video advertisements that play when potential customers play videos. Facebook has also set up Messenger for business pages, which allows businesses to chat with their target audience, answer questions, or even set up appointments. Business Audience Insights Facebook?s Audience Insight is a free tool available to all business pages that will help them understand their audience. The Insights tools include information on a business?s target audience, including geography, purchasing patterns, and other pages that your audience has liked. This gives business owners a better idea of who their target audience is and what they want to see in a product or service. In order to surpass your competitors, businesses need to not only establish a strong online presence, but also know how to use social media forums such as Facebook to their advantage. If you?re interested in learning more about social media marketing strategy, feel free to contact Info Advantage at (585) 254-8710. Designed by Freepik
When money is tight and you start feeling down about your financial situation, it?s important to keep the big picture in mind. This can be done by reviewing your net worth. Plus, if you go so far as to track your net worth, then you?ll constantly have this big picture before you. This will help you to worry less and allow you to better focus on your goals. How to Find Out Your Net WorthThankfully, your net worth takes more into consideration than just your paycheck. A good definition of net worth is the value of all assets, minus the total of all liabilities. Put another way, net worth is what you own minus what you owe. Generally speaking, this is why your net worth increases over time, due to the fact that you?ll owe less and less on the debts you pay. When determining your net worth, start by making a thorough list of what you own and what you owe. What You Own Home (its current value) Other real estate Automobiles and other vehicles like RVs and ATVs (leased vehicles don?t count) Jewelry and collectibles Household items, like furniture, appliances, etc. Retirement accounts, bonds, stocks, mutual funds Cash value of life insurance The balance of checking and savings accounts Cash What You Owe Home mortgage principal Other mortgage principal Auto loans Student loans Credit card debt Other loans Once you have all of these items in order, you?ll next plug this information into an online net worth calculator. How to Track Your Net WorthNow that you know your net worth, you can use a spreadsheet tool to keep track of its growth–in a similar way to how you keep track of your monthly budget. Here are four ways that tracking your net worth can benefit your financial situation. Financial Progress: We all want to evolve and progress in anything in life, it?s human nature. It’s even better when you grow your money and can look back to the month or year previous and see how far you’ve come. Confidence Builder: For example, if you saved an extra $1,000 in your emergency fund or watch your 401K increase due to a bigger contribution, it will make you feel proud of what you?ve been able to accomplish. Avoid focusing on just assets: If you have 200K in assets but 100K in debt, you?re just lying to yourself. It’s important to factor both into the calculation. Loans: Your net worth can be a factor if you plan on applying for a loan in the near future. In the same way that it?s beneficial to keep track of your personal net worth, there are benefits to keeping track of your company?s assets. The average SMB likely needs more than a calculator and a spreadsheet to do this, which is why there are so many enterprise-level accounting solutions on the market. To learn more about what?s available for your accounting department and how technology can further your company?s goals, give us a call at (585) 254-8710. P.S. Some businesses struggle to reliably budget out their IT, especially with surprise bills when technology goes down and unexpected updates need to take place. If you are frustrated with the unforeseen nature of your current IT, reach out to Info Advantage to discuss a managed, proactive approach.
Mobility is proving to be a major pain point for businesses, especially when it comes to implementing new technology solutions. It?s become crucial to consider how mobility can influence the growth of your business and improve operations, particularly with the cloud gaining ground and mobile devices becoming omnipresent in the workplace. How will your business learn from this influx of mobility? Here are four ways that mobility trends have infiltrated the enterprise environment, and why your business can (and should) apply them to its own technology strategy. Doing so keeps you one step ahead of the curb on this important industry topic: Security is important: Regardless of what types of devices your business uses, it?s primarily how they access data that you need to be concerned with. Data security is crucial, especially for mobile devices that may be connecting to unsecured Wi-Fi hotspots while out of the office. A virtual private network, or VPN, is a valid choice to mitigate the risk associated with potentially dangerous connections, while a mobile device management solution can allow you to restrict access to sensitive corporate information on a per-user and per-application basis. Increased focus on the cloud: The cloud lets your business store data and applications in an online environment, where they can be accessed from any location with an Internet connection. This makes collaboration and communication much easier, as no matter where your employees are, they can connect to your base of operations and access the resources they need to do their jobs. The convergence of desktop and mobile: Windows 10, Microsoft?s latest operating system, was an attempt by the software giant to create an OS and applications that work on a myriad of different devices, be it a desktop workstation, or a smartphone. This suggests that solutions that work on a universal level can improve the productivity and flexibility of a workplace. After all, you can get more done with a full version of an app built for a smartphone than you would with a watered-down version. Regulation and oversight are critical: Your business needs control of its data if you want to thrive. Mobile devices might have the benefit of flexibility, but you need to ensure that users can be held accountable for their actions – including how and why they use sensitive corporate data. In most cases, it?s important to restrict access to data in order to protect it from those who have no business viewing it. There?s certainly a lot to consider when implementing mobile technology solutions, but you don?t have to do it alone. Info Advantage can help your team make an educated decision about how to use mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops, to their advantage. To learn more, reach out to us at (585) 254-8710.
The first thing you?ll need to understand about migrating to the cloud is that it?s a much more involved process than simply performing a single software upgrade. Truth be told, properly migrating your data to the cloud involves a lot of prep work, and, as is the case with other kinds of moves like packing up your personal belongings to settle into a new house, the better prepared you are for the move, the smoother the transition will go and the less of a chance that you?ll lose something of value. ITProPortal provides some insight into what migrating to the cloud properly takes: ?It involves a complex infrastructure migration process. Good preparation is the key to success. Those organizing the migration process should ensure that all data is ready for the move and that the company network has the necessary capabilities to interact with the cloud.? This is a major reason why you?ll want a professional assessment of your IT infrastructure before deciding to move to the cloud. Preparing your network for a move to the cloud involves a few considerations: Sorting and Labeling Your FilesIt?s important to take the time to determine what files are worth saving and moving, and what files aren?t so you?re not wasting time and resources moving and storing old files that your company no longer needs. This can be a time-consuming process, but the work will be worth it in the long run. Preparing Your Network InfrastructureMigrating to the cloud comes with demands on a network that may require major adjustments to be made to your IT infrastructure. When migrating to the cloud, there are two major additions to your network you?ll want to consider; setting up a direct Internet breakout in order to distribute traffic across external networks, and multiple firewall instances in order to secure the various Internet connections. Have a Migration TimetableEven the best planned move to the cloud can take weeks or even months to complete. Therefore, you?re going to want to present your staff with an accurate timetable so the transition won?t interrupt workflow. One particular thing to plan for is how user settings will be migrated, like profiles, address books, calendars, etc. To help with this, ITProPortal advises: ?Instead of moving all their data to the cloud, more and more companies are opting for a hybrid solution. This means that some users and storage locations stay with Exchange on-premises, while the rest move to the cloud.? With all of your data successfully migrated, you will next want to consider strengthening security, archiving, and data backup in order to fully prepare your organization for the unique challenges of cloud computing. Rest assured, Info Advantage is here to assist you with any challenges your organization faces as you operate within your new cloud environment, as well as to help you through every step of your cloud migration process. Reach out to us at (585) 254-8710 for any IT assistance that you require.