MicroLogix Network Services, LLC Blog

Handling time calculations in a spreadsheet can often feel frustrating—especially when you’re just trying to add them up. Luckily, both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets have built-in functions specifically designed for this purpose, making the process more manageable.

Here’s a quick guide to help you get started, no matter which spreadsheet program you use.

Mobile malware might not have a lot of attention on it, but it can be a significant problem for organizations that rely on smartphones. This goes double for small businesses that typically don’t have the large teams and big budgets for their mobile strategies that include devices, data and phone plans, and security controls. Today, we’ll look at mobile malware and how an organization with a limited budget can keep it from impacting its business.

Technology has empowered us to achieve more than ever, but with that progress comes increased expectations for everyone. This means greater productivity, and the pressure to perform can be relentless at times, making it crucial to find efficient ways to manage our tasks. Unfortunately, there is a natural limit to how much we can accomplish, and certain challenges can push us to that limit faster. Today, we want to explore two of the most common productivity pitfalls.

Remote work has been a mainstay in most businesses’ standard operating procedures in at least some capacity, but it opens up a nasty can of worms regarding cybersecurity. If cybersecurity is not your top priority, and you have remote or hybrid employees, we need to have a talk—and probably a hard one.

Password best practices (and common sense, if we’re being honest) tell us to always use a strong password for every account we have. This is because, unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to crack a weak one anymore. A bit of software on a standard computer can crack millions of passwords in a matter of seconds… so the more complex and randomized a password, the better and more secure it will be.

However, this can also make it a real challenge to create and then memorize sufficiently complex passwords. To help, we wanted to share a fun trick.

Businesses today need to worry about people outside their business trying to break into their network and steal their data. Unfortunately, that’s not the only direction that theft can come from. In this week’s blog, we’ll take a look at the types of technology theft you need to be aware of inside of your company and what you can do about it.

With mobile devices playing a crucial role in modern business  it’s extremely important to have a clear plan for managing them. Unfortunately, this isn’t so cut and dry. Today, we’ll explore the differences between two of the most popular mobile management strategies: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Corporate-Owned, Personally Enabled (COPE).

The cloud is undeniably useful for most individuals and businesses, and its increasing use in business situations shows this. However, this doesn’t mean that it is the be-all and end-all for businesses. In this month’s newsletter, we thought we’d discuss some of the pros and cons of using cloud platforms inside a small business setting.

Cybersecurity is the single largest problem that any business faces, particularly when the threat profile out there is so vast and varied. Today, we want to go over the many solutions your business can implement to make cybersecurity much more manageable.

Every organization relies on its IT to be operational and available. Some businesses cannot function at all without it. However, issues can arise if employees need access to it when it comes time to patch software or perform other maintenance. This month, we’ll explore the strategy behind proactive IT maintenance and how it helps businesses avoid downtime in various ways.

Running a business is challenging, often involving tough decisions, particularly when it comes to employee retention and ensuring their productivity. In today's article, we discuss the issues that arise from high employee turnover and burnout, which can really be a problem for the modern business.

There’s no getting around the fact that server management is difficult for SMBs. While they might be a critical part of your operation’s infrastructure, servers are complex pieces of technology. If they are not appropriately managed, your company could waste time, energy, and resources. Today, we want to highlight the primary functions of server management and how you can get the most out of your existing resources.

We all share a lot of data. There’s everything shared for professional purposes, of course, but there’s also all the casual things that we send back and forth—chats, requests to have people to pick up things on the way home, and (naturally) memes and pet pictures.

Most of this is sent off without a thought. However, let’s take a moment to think about it for a moment… is there an impact to all this data being sent around?

Individuals and businesses are increasingly relying on wireless technologies to maintain constant connectivity because users rely on wireless networks. In recent years, numerous innovations have occurred in this space, and we thought that in this month's newsletter, we’d highlight some of the key innovations in the wireless domain that you should be aware of.

You can’t run a modern business without software. Even your most basic solopreneur business runs using software at its foundation. For businesses, this problem is increased dramatically as the amount of software fueling operations increases. Software management tools can improve the way your organization keeps tabs on its software.

We’re still getting more information on this, but at the time of writing this, every American can assume that their social security number has been stolen. Let’s share what we know so far.

Businesses deal with all types of problems, and some of them are really serious. Some situations aren’t even problems…yet. When risk is all around you, how can you know when enough is just enough? In today’s blog, we will provide you with some answers to how to flip potential problems into opportunities using technology.

Ideally, your business will last for years and years, but your information technology will simply not be able to do the same. This makes it essential to rework and update your business’ IT regularly. Let’s discuss a few warning signs that you need to pay attention to so you know when to do so.

Your computer’s CPU is one of the most sensitive, advanced pieces of technology that you probably don’t think too much about. The CPU itself is just around 4-5 centimeters in length and width, and it handles all of the data processing in your computer. Every single thing you do on a computer gets calculated through the CPU. Most modern CPUs have billions of microscopic transistors in that tiny little space. These transistors are so small that you can fit hundreds of them on a single red blood cell, or thousands of them in the width of a human hair.

So it’s inevitable that something can go wrong. Many fairly modern computers are experiencing a bug right now that could potentially and permanently damage the CPU. There’s a patch to fix it, but if the damage is already done, the patch won’t repair it.

Productivity. To business owners, it can be a mantra. You can judge the success of your organization by productivity, as it often translates directly to profits. You’ll notice a lack of productivity in your operations, and potentially even your pocketbooks, so it’s incredibly important to know whether your business is being productive or not.