IT Support

Southwest Airlines’ recent fiasco that caused them to cancel over 16,700 flights, leaving people stranded across America, was the epitome of what’s happening with so many businesses right now across the US. A total and complete meltdown in service due to cheapness. During their busiest season, Southwest had to apologize for miscommunications that led to thousands of their customers being left stranded at airports. In Nashville, the airport police were telling checked-in travelers whose Southwest flights had been canceled that they would be arrested and physically removed for trespassing if they didn’t voluntarily leave the secure area because their boarding passes were no longer valid. Southwest employees were getting into verbal fights with obviously frustrated passengers, and very little communication was offered to passengers.  This little nightmare is estimated to have cost Southwest in the neighborhood of $725 million to $825 million, not to mention the loyalty of its customers and the damage to its reputation. Now, how’s the cost of that IT upgrading looking, Mr. CEO? Of course, nobody likes to invest money into IT upgrades and other “infrastructure” improvements. Money spent on a new website will drive new opportunities into your organization and (hopefully) give you an advantage over your competition. An easy investment. Money spent on office remodeling can be enjoyed every day, making employees happier and impressing clients who visit the office – another “easy” investment that delivers visible, tangible ROI instantly. But NOBODY likes to spend thousands of dollars on basic IT upgrades – UNTIL the meltdown brings your organization to a grinding halt at the worst possible time.  So, what should you spend on IT? According to a study done by TechTarget, companies generating less than $50 million in revenue spend an average of 6.9% of their total revenue on IT costs. But with regulatory compliance laws and cyber-attacks on the uptick, those budgets need to be increased in order to simply avoid a massive loss. Another survey, conducted by Capterra, showed that 75% of SMBs said they would be spending 10% to 20% MORE in 2023 on software and IT than in the previous year. A HUGE increase.  What are they spending it on? Cyber security being driven by compliance regulations and risk management is, without a doubt, one of the big areas of increase in spending. Another is workforce enablement to give employees more flexible (but secure) ways to work from home, on the road, or in the office. And finally, many companies are investing in any kind of technology that will reduce their need for and dependency on growing their workforce. Overhead walks on two legs – so, if a business can increase productivity without adding people, that’s always a win. Being “too cheap” in anything as a means to improve profits is a terrible long-term strategy. In fact, it’s a misnomer to even call it a “strategy.” It’s simply a short-term fix that should only be used in the most dire of times. Cutting IT spending to the quick gives a false sense of savings, as Southwest Airlines discovered. It’s not a problem until it IS. Then you have a giant, expensive mess to clean up that could cost you far more in losses than in money saved short term.  Book a 10-minute discovery call to see what you should expect to pay for IT in your area. 

Covid changed everyone’s lives in dramatic ways on many levels – but small and big businesses alike were radically impacted, from events, restaurants, and retail being shut down to sending everyone home to work remotely.   It’s no surprise that the tech sector thrived during this time, from remote work solutions to online ordering, telemedicine, virtual events, and more. Good or bad, a LOT of these changes are here to stay.  Cyber security protection to avoid or at least mitigate losses. Warren Buffet is famous for his two rules of investing and making money: Rule #1: Don’t lose money. Rule #2: Never forget Rule #1.While nobody likes to spend money on cyber security, the simple fact of the matter is that if you don’t, or if you underinvest in adequate protections, you WILL lose money in your business, either from it being taken from your bank account or from the vast number of costs associated with a breach that most people grossly underestimate. Without a doubt, cybercriminals went gangbusters during the lockdowns when millions of people were forced to work remotely using unsecured home WiFi, laptops, and cell phones. The Trend Micro Annual Cybersecurity Report saw a whopping 16 million threats related to Covid-19 in 2020 alone. Business Wire recently reported that 81% of global organizations experienced an increase in cyberthreats and 79% experienced downtime due to a cyber security risk. These threats are continually getting more aggressive, frequent, and damaging, so you must have a plan in place to ensure you’re not robbed blind and taken out. Click here for a free cyber security risk assessment to see how vulnerable you are. Using tech to get more efficient with fewer employees. Since 2010, the US unemployment rate has been on a steady decline, from nearly 10% to under 3% right at the start of 2020. Covid shutdowns temporarily covered up this shortage with thousands being laid off, but now that life is back to “normal” (whatever this new normal is), the labor shortage has crippled many businesses that are now trying to reopen but can’t operate at full capacity, not only due to an inability to find and keep good people but also because of the cost of hiring with salary demands increasing.This is forcing many organizations to implement automated systems, as well as artificial intelligence to replace workers, like grocery store checkout lines being limited to only two or three open, driving customers to use self-checkout, or companies switching to AI-driven chatbots, text messages, and phone systems to handle the initial customer requests, lowering the need for paid employees. Another area many businesses are focusing on is getting more productivity from every employee using tech and automation. Many sales departments are using dialers, CRM, and marketing automation systems to get a single rep to be far more productive, generating more sales by removing or reducing manual labor tasks and “paperwork” that fills hours of any sales rep’s day. And finally, another growing area of focus is to ensure the productivity of employees. This has become a hot topic since the shutdowns sent so many people home to work, and many people now ONLY want remote work. The problem is, many employees lack the personal discipline and productive environment to work distraction-free, making them far less productive than if they came into an office. To combat this, some businesses are utilizing productivity-monitoring software like ActivTrak or Teramind to know just how much time employees are away from their computers or surfing social media and other non-work-related sites. Doing this allows the employer to know if any employee is truly “overworked” or barely putting in an eight-hour day. Click here to schedule a quick call to discuss this software for your business. Online ordering and fulfillment. At an event in our industry, Marcus Lemonis, the star of the hit TV show The Profit and CEO of the billion-dollar brands Camping World and Good Sam, shared how Camping World frantically transitioned his retail stores to online ordering, shipping, and drive-by pickup to enable his customers to keep buying when the stores were physically shut down. An investment that not only paid off in the short term but also expanded the company’s ability to generate sales and fuel customer spending and loyalty.Many restaurants started or enhanced online ordering during the lockdowns, some becoming pickup-only establishments with no indoor seating, decreasing the need for more employees while continuing to generate sales. They also started (and many have kept) ordering using a QR code, eliminating paper menus, and facilitating ordering and payment. Some have gotten into the business of preassembled cook-from-home boxes, like Middlebury Pizzeria, which sells mini pizza kits you make and bake at home, opening a new revenue stream they didn’t have pre-pandemic. A good question to ask is how can you add some type of digital or online ordering and fulfillment to your organization? Maybe it’s time to go paperless and collect all payments with credit cards or other digital payment systems, eliminating paper invoices and many of your collection problems once and for all. Many medical companies are now storing clients’ credit cards and bank information for this reason. Of course, this opens up another door for cyber security problems and compliance issues, but the payoff can be huge. As always, you can schedule a quick 10-minute call to discuss your ideas for going digital for payments and order fulfillment.

It’s not just cybercriminals who hack into networks and steal data. Most business owners erroneously think cybercrime is limited to hackers based in China or Russia, but the evidence is overwhelming that disgruntled employees, both of your company and your vendors, can cause significant losses due to their knowledge of your organization and access to your data and systems. What damage can they do?  They leave with YOUR company’s files, client data, and confidential information stored on personal devices, as well as retaining access to cloud applications, such as social media sites and file-sharing sites (Dropbox or OneDrive, for example), that your IT department doesn’t know about or forgets to change the password to. In fact, according to an in-depth study conducted by Osterman Research, 69% of businesses experience data loss due to employee turnover, and 87% of employees who leave take data with them. What do they do with that information? Sell it to competitors, BECOME a competitor, or retain it to use at their next job. Funds, inventory, trade secrets, client lists, and HOURS stolen. There are dozens of sneaky ways employees steal, and it’s happening a LOT more than businesses care to admit. According to the website StatisticBrain, 75% of all employees have stolen from their employers at some point. From stealing inventory to check and credit card fraud, your hard-earned money can easily be stolen over time in small amounts that you never catch.Here’s the most COMMON way they steal: They waste HOURS of time on your dime to do personal errands, shop, play games, check social media feeds, gamble, read the news and a LONG list of non-work-related activities. Of course, YOU are paying them for a 40-hour week, but you might only be getting half of that. Then they complain about being “overwhelmed” and “overworked.” They tell you, “You need to hire more people!” so you do. All of this is a giant suck on profits if you allow it. Further, if your IT company is not monitoring what employees do and limiting what sites they can visit, they could do things that put you in legal jeopardy, like downloading illegal music and video files, visiting adult content websites, gaming, and gambling – all of these sites fall under HIGH RISK for viruses and phishing scams. They DELETE everything. A common scenario: An employee is fired or quits because they are unhappy with how they are being treated – but before they leave, they permanently delete ALL of their e-mails and any critical files they can get their hands on. If you don’t have that data backed up, you lose it ALL. Even if you sue them and win, the legal costs, time wasted on the lawsuit and on recovering the data, not to mention the aggravation and distraction of dealing with it all, are all greater costs than what you might get awarded if you win the lawsuit, might collect in damages. Do you really think this can’t happen to you? Think again.  You have to be proactive in protecting your organization. To find out if your IT company is doing everything in its power to protect you book a 10-minute discovery call using this link https://calendar.app.google/jSA1tteBxFJKnJkX6 and you’ll also get access to a FREE and confidential cybersecurity risk assessment.

If you depend on your computer network to run your business (and who doesn’t?), you’ll want someone treating your data as securely as they would their own.    Not knowing what’s going on behind the scenes should scare the crap out of you. It is NOT unreasonable that your IT company is monitoring your network 24/7/365. Stop paying for substandard support. It’s important for you to interview your current company to ensure they are up to your standards. This will help you determine if it’s time for a change (so you can sleep at night). The top 3 questions to ask include: “Do you provide detailed invoices clearly outlining what we are paying for?”       If your auto draft is just sending a traditional monthly payment without explanation, something isn’t right. Each invoice needs to show what services each dollar covers, just to ensure you aren’t being nickel-and-dimed outside of what’s covered in your contract. “Do you provide status reports on new projects?”       Or if they’re working on an in-process project? It’s on them to provide updates and give you ETAs on when work will be completed.   “Do you offer guarantees on services?”       Any IT company should back its services 100%. Any updates, additions, subtractions, etc., should not be an additional charge and should be guaranteed to work the first time, without having to submit an additional ticket.  We are offering a free report with 13 additional questions to ask any IT company to make sure you have hired the best choice for services. It also includes cost-saving strategies. To know more about it, you may call us at 774-504-5558 or book a 10-minute discovery call using this link https://calendar.app.google/jSA1tteBxFJKnJkX6

They don’t call you back, they don’t text back, and when you get time with them, they are disheveled, rude, and uninterested, doing barely enough to keep things going. This sounds like a bad date…and it’s one that many businesses are on with their current IT guy. You have a problem, need a password, the Internet is down, you have site problems, need a new computer [insert any part here] and you “submit a ticket” only to wait hours, days, or even weeks to hear back, much less get the problem resolved. The #1 complaint businesses have that causes them to “break up” with their current IT guy is that he simply wasn’t responsive. Just like you wouldn’t stand for this in your personal life, you shouldn’t stand for it in your professional life…especially when you’re paying them!!! If your current company doesn’t have a response-time guarantee, you’re probably on a bad date. Most IT firms offer a 60-minute or 30-minute response time to your call during normal business hours. Be very wary of someone who doesn’t have a guaranteed response time IN WRITING – that’s a sign they are too disorganized, understaffed, or overwhelmed to handle your request.  A good IT firm should be able to show you statistics from their PSA (professional services automation) software, where all client problems (tickets) get responded to and tracked. Ask to see a report on average ticket response and resolution times. Also, any good IT company will answer their phones LIVE (not voice mail or phone trees) and respond from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every weekday. But many CEOs and executives work outside normal “9 to 5” hours and need IT support both nights and weekends, so ask about their guarantees for after-hours issues as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5dFilcmY4w Technology Tips By Centrend Podcast: Episode #5 With the scarcity of computers right now and the need for additional computers for remote working and remote learning, many folks are dusting off their old Windows 7 computers. The problem is, you may not remember the password to it. In this blog entry, I show you how to recover a Windows 7 password, without a recovery USB stick. While it’s not ideal to use Windows 7 computers as they are no longer under support and may have unpatched security vulnerabilities, it may be necessary to get you through the pinch. The first step is to click the bottom right corner to shut Windows down. Turn the computer on and immediately being rapidly pressing the F8 key.  A menu should appear like the one below. Use the arrow keys to arrow down to Safe Mode with Command Prompt. Press Enter and Windows starts in a special boot mode.  If the Administrator account had been already activated, we would see an option here to change users.  Since no additional account appears that we can switch to, we will be able to boot to alternate media and turn on the hidden administrator account! You’ll need media to continue. While modern Windows 10 computers don’t usually come with any media, many if not most Windows 7 computers shipped with either a DVD or a USB stick. If not, contact us and we can help you find media to use for recovery. Shut the computer off again. Insert your recovery media into the DVD player or the USB stick into a USB slot. Turn the computer back on and this time rapidly press the F12 key for a boot options menu.  Note: Some computers don’t use F12. If F12 doesn’t work for you, watch your computer’s screen for a hint. It could be Del or F2 key for example. Use the arrow keys to select the media you inserted. This could say DVD or USB. Press Enter. As soon as you press enter, you’ll be prompted “Press any key to boot…” Press a key such as Enter to get the computer to boot the recovery media instead of your internal hard drive. You’ll see a message “Windows is loading files…” It will look like it’s a brand-new install of Windows 7.  Choose the default language, then click next. When the install/repair menu comes up, click Repair your computer. After a few minutes, you will be presented with a menu to choose the operating system. Click Next. Now for the recovery option, choose Command Prompt. When the command prompt opens, type the following and press the Enter key: net user administrator /active:yes You should get a reply that the command was completed successfully. Type Exit and press the Enter key and you’ll be back at the System Recovery Options menu. Click Restart to restart the computer normally. You will not press anything at boot-up this time. If you end up in Recovery mode again, remove the media and restart the computer to boot normally. Once you boot normally, you will see both the original user ID along with an administrator login that you can choose. Choose Administrator to log into that account. You won’t be prompted for a password because we didn’t set one. All we did at the command line was activate the account. It will take a few minutes for the administrator profile to be created. Once you see the desktop, we can set the password on the account we want to use with the computer. In this example, the name of the account is Mark. Click the start bubble at the bottom left, then go into the control panel. Next, go to User Accounts, the Add or Remove User Accounts. Click the account name you want to reset the password on. Now you can click either Remove the password or Change the password. Now restart the computer and you will be able to get right into your usual user profile again! Be sure to either disable the administrator account or set a password for it to keep your computer secure. If you get stuck at any part of this process, give us a call or submit our consulting form for a quick free assessment of your situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyyB-OWr3So Technology Tips by Centrend Podcast: Episode 4 I love working with a whiteboard. In fact, I can think of no technique more effective for brainstorming a project than getting a team of folks to share ideas in front of a whiteboard.  In 2020, we are forced out of the office, but the need for project collaboration and groupthink doesn’t stop. Enter the digital whiteboard. A powerful team collaboration tool that lets you collaborate with up to 50 participants that can be located anywhere in the world. For this walkthrough, I’ll be showing you Google’s Jamboard. There are other tools, but this one is one of my favorites, and to get started, all you need is a Google account. Go to jamboard.google.com.  If you’ve used Jamboard already, your previous jams will be listed. If you’ve never used Jamboard or want to start a new jam, click the + sign in the bottom right corner. Experiment with the drawing tools on the left side. For example, select the pen tool and freehand draw shapes: You can then use things like the Text Tool to draw text on the whiteboard – either stand-alone or on shapes you’ve already drawn. You can also click the underlined A at the top bar to select a font color for the typed text. You can freehand draw shapes, just like on a real whiteboard. If you make a mistake, you can use either the eraser tool or the undo button to undo the last action. Here’s a really handy tip for you. If you want to draw a straight line, you can hold the shift key as you draw. Who needs a steady hand with this technology? You can type text, then rotate that text by clicking and holding on the top left of the text box. With the text rotated, you can still reposition it anywhere on the canvas. One of my favorite things about Jamboard vs. other whiteboard apps is the built-in image searchability. Instead of having to go to the internet in a new browser tab, find an image, save that image somewhere, go back to Jamboard, and import the image (remembering where you had saved it), you can do all this right inside Jamboard in just a couple clicks! First, click the Image Icon, then click the Google Image Search tab. This lets you search in the browser. Click the image you like and then click Insert. The jam is private until you share it. Sharing it unlocks the real power of this collaborative tool. To share, click Share in the top right. Then enter the email address of whom you’d like to invite. You can have them View only if you are presenting, or make them an editor if you want them to add and change the drawing. In the example below, I’ve added a technical consultant from Whiz Kid Support, our residential division of Centrend, to add the remote user part to our diagram. As they add elements, you will see their icon and initial appear. Usually, you would be on a video conference or at least a phone call while doing this, but you don’t have to be. You can have multiple pages on the whiteboard. To get a new whiteboard in the same file, click the arrow to the right of the whiteboard page marker in the top center of the screen: You can also click the shape icon and draw perfect shapes. Like this: Finally, the laser pointer is great for presenting ideas and talking about specific whiteboard areas in detail. You select the bottom tool from the left side toolbar, and then you can use this laser pointer effect to draw attention to an area of the whiteboard without actually drawing on it: The jam board software works on almost any internet-connected device such as an iPad or Android tablet or phone. On touch-enabled devices, you can draw on the device to draw on the board, and everyone will see your changes! As you can see, a digital whiteboard is a powerful, practical tool for team collaboration. There’s also a physical jam board for when you have some collaborators on-premises while working with remote team members at the same time. You can learn more about the physical jam board by clicking here. If you need help deploying this technology in your organization, please reach out for a free consultation. We can offer equipment, training, and consulting on many whiteboard solutions.   

https://youtu.be/8S-6LXy57Cg Technology Tips by Centrend Podcast: Episode 3 These days, when we aren’t on camera in a web meeting, it seems like we are typing on our computer keyboards. Typing skills are essential to be productive and competitive. I’m going to show you some effective and fun ways to improve your keyboarding skills. Everyone, no matter their age, should seek to develop their typing skills as much as possible. The faster you can get your thoughts out and into the computer, the more productive your entire day will be.  In this blog, I show you several great online resources for mastering the keyboard. First, www.ratatype.com. Ratatype is a good learning tool. Many teachers send their students here, and the format is a lot like an actual typing course. If you choose to create an account and log in, the site will keep track of your progress and present increasingly challenging lessons. I find this resource invaluable for practicing those harder letter/symbol combinations that you don’t get to type often but slow you down when you do need to type them. Next, www.typeracer.com. I have to admit; this one is my favorite. It can be very entertaining! I’ve watched entire offices playing during their break time to compete for high scores! You don’t have to log in here either. You can go directly to Enter a typing race.  Like Ratatype, if you log in, the site will track your high scores. Do you have problems with technology and want things to run better? For businesses, call us at 774-241-8600.  For support for home users or individuals, visit www.whizkidsupport.com or call 774-778-2800.

Individuals and small businesses struggle with ways to increase the lifetime value of their PC hardware. ​ What can you do​ to keep your computer running strong like you?​ Extending the life of existing desktops and laptops to reduce your cost and lower your budget is critical in today’s economic climate. Families and companies alike are dealing with limited resources and need their computers to last more than a couple of years. The truth is a quality computer that is maintained will last several years – perhaps even a decade! So how do you make sure your PC investment lasts? The first factor is your buying strategy. Start with a quality computer build. If you buy the cheapest, bargain-basement computer off the shelf, you can’t expect it to last as long as a solid business-class or mid-range residential system. The reality is for a few dollars more you end up with hardware that will last six or more years. Assuming you started with a decent build to begin with, a PC tuneup will go a long way toward extending your computer’s speed and overall life. Here’s a list of things you should be doing at least quarterly to keep your computer running well: Proactively clean and defrag your computer Repair registry issues with your system Keep up to date with hardware drivers Your operating system should be updating regularly – make sure that it’s happening Maintain antivirus software (besides what the computer operating system comes with) Check for add-ons and other unwanted leeches that sap your computer’s resources Centrend can take care of all these things for your business with our automated tools. Give us a call! If you are a home user or solopreneur, visit our whizkidsupport.com site for affordable maintenance plans tailored to your individual needs.

Centrend cares about our employees’ and our customer’s safety, and we’re doing our part to reduce the spread and flatten the curve. Read on to learn what we are doing to keep safe and keep our customers’ information systems running well. We are practicing social distancing and utilizing our extensive remote support and remote management tools to maximize efficiency and safety for our staff and our customers. We’ve limited our travel and on-site visits to only the essential times when we must be physically on-site. For the safety of our staff and our customers, projects requiring us to be hands-on at the customer’s location have been deferred until after the crisis is over, and the restrictions are lifted. Since Governor Baker’s announcement that only critical businesses would be allowed to operate, Centrend expanded our support hours and has been working tirelessly to implement secure remote access solutions for our customers.  We can help with secure, remote access, training on video conferencing tools, or support for your remote workers. You need your staff to work remotely and keep your business operating as best it can. We can help. Starting in Mid-April, Centrend will offer free consultation and free set up of remote access solutions tailored to your unique business environment. Stay tuned to our blog for more information. You can also give us a call at 774-241-8600 or submit the short form below.