Coleman Technologies Blog

Operations change over time. It’s likely that your business’ operations don’t even remotely resemble what they were in previous years. For example, mobile technology first became more popular for computing around the year 2013, and “unified communications” was a hot commodity in the business world. Nowadays, productivity and collaboration solutions using mobile devices are some of the most basic solutions out there.

Many organizations fall into the trap of believing their past successes guarantee their future, but this isn’t necessarily the case. The reverse could be true. Here are some questions to ask if you suspect that your organization could be falling into complacency:

• Are any potential changes or growth opportunities avoided or rebuffed through the use of highly selective facts?
• Do conversations amongst your team skirt around topics like new markets, possible competition, or other developing business opportunities?
• Are failures used to postpone new attempts instead of as learning moments?
• Do meetings frequently end in a holding pattern?

Any of the above questions indicate whether or not a business has gotten too comfortable, preventing them from making sound decisions. Thankfully, once you’ve identified this complacency, it becomes easy to resolve it. Try asking these questions about your business, its policies, and its culture:

• Is there any way that your processes could be made more efficient?
• Does your business plan reflect the goals that your business is currently striving for?
• Is your service offering a good fit for your current audience? What needs will they have in the near future?
• Are there any technologies that could soon cause a disruption in your market, or could be used as an invaluable tool?
• How engaged are your employees?

Answering these questions will give you all the ammunition you need to put together a solid understanding of what your business needs to do on both a local and industrial level. Of course, this can be challenging as well, as you might encounter issues that need to be resolved before you can make progress as a business.

Coleman Technologies can help your business implement IT solutions designed to keep your business running efficiently while still maintaining the status quo. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Stay Organized Whenever Possible

Any business owner receives countless emails on a daily basis, and when they all collect in one place, they can quickly become overwhelming. The issue with this is that, when you have to focus on too many messages at once, it’s more likely that you’ll miss important messages, focus on the wrong tasks, or even respond to messages thinking they are different ones, creating some messy confusion. If you can’t determine what’s important in your inbox, how can you even be productive? We recommend placing filters on your inbox so that you can determine a message’s importance, sender, topic, and even more to navigate and sort your inbox in the most efficient way possible.

Allocate Time to Your Inbox

You should always set aside a specific amount of time every day to deal with the emails you receive. If you don’t, chances are that you will get sidetracked by a task and possibly miss out on responding to important emails. One thing to keep in mind when considering how quickly you should respond to emails is that messages that are the most important aren’t going to come in your email inbox. The ones that are critical will likely come in other forms, such as someone within your organization knocking on the door or giving you a phone call to make the issue known.

Use Alternative Communication Methods

If you find yourself stuck with a perpetually full inbox, perhaps you could benefit from sending or receiving fewer messages. If the message is short or a simple notification, perhaps it would be better to use alternative means of communication, such as an instant message. This is particularly great, as it cuts down on the back and forth required for a quick conversation, as well as takes the urgency out of a situation.

Make a Quick Phone Call

Sometimes a matter is too important to leave to an email. In cases like this, making a phone call is the most prudent. Furthermore, meeting in person can take this advantage one step further, as you eliminate the possibility of intent being misconstrued altogether, making it much easier to be as clear as possible.

To learn more about how you can eliminate the pains of email, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Need #1: Security

In order to be successful, a business needs to have the security necessary to protect its resources. The first step to accomplishing that, is to identify any weaknesses in its infrastructure through a preliminary IT evaluation known as an IT risk assessment. This assessment can reveal where a business is the most vulnerable. At that point, these flaws can be mitigated using tools like firewalls, antivirus, and multi-factor authentication - tools that either SMBs or enterprises can (and do) use.

With SMBs increasing their use of cloud services, a large portion of this process should be fulfilled by the cloud provider. However, the business leveraging the cloud provider needs to make sure that the provider they have selected is able to uphold what they have promised as part of their service-level agreement. If this is the case, the SMB could find themselves in the position to leverage enterprise-caliber security solutions, for a cost that fits their budget.

Need #2: Data Storage

While their budgets put enterprise businesses in a much more favorable position to create an infrastructure that can contend with their operational needs, this is not to say that SMBs are left without any options. Any good data storage solution will perform well based on a few benchmarks: how well it works, how often it works, how easily it can be accessed, and how easily its contents can be searched.

The enterprise business has quite a few options to leverage, such as data tiering (where data of differing importance is stored on different servers) and higher-performing data storage solutions. If this is starting to sound expensive, it is - but again, thanks to the cloud, SMBs aren’t left without options, either. With scalable Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service being available for a much more affordable rate, SMBs are able to leverage the advanced tools that would otherwise only be available to corporate-level businesses.

Interested in leveraging some of these capabilities in your business, or want to find out more? Reach out to the professionals at Coleman Technologies! We have the experience necessary to bring your information technology to the corporate level. Reach out to us at (604) 513-9428 to learn more.

Before we go into depth about network and cybersecurity, we’d like to point out just why they are so important. You invest a lot of time and money into making your business what it is. You pay a lot of money for hardware, software, services, and time to give your business a chance to succeed. The act of protecting your business, its staff, vendors, and clients is one that should be taken seriously, because if any are compromised, your business is in trouble.

The Protection of Business Computing

Today’s business uses a computing infrastructure that is much larger and complex than most and includes considerations outside the physical confines of the network. Cloud services have become a very popular product for businesses and individuals alike. Cloud services are hosted in some other place, and by companies that have taken great diligence at securing their solution. For obvious reasons, you can’t guarantee that your cloud-hosted data is 100% secure, but logic suggests that a company offering computing services over the Internet would be in serious trouble if they were to have their security compromised.

These services all have dedicated access control systems that are designed to only let authorized users in. Some organizations also require their staff to utilize two-factor authentication to secure the solutions further.

This brings us to the perimeter of the network. Regardless of a company’s ineptitude with cybersecurity, there is typically some form of firewall that stands between the Internet and the company’s network. If the firewall is properly maintained with threat definitions, it will stop a good amount of unwanted traffic. It’s just not enough. With the immense amount of attack vectors threats are coming from nowadays, a stand-alone firewall is like a single sheet of flypaper in front of a window.

Going the Extra Mile

In order to keep their business’ data and infrastructure safe, many organizations have begun to utilize Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). These systems include Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), software that attempts to block determined threats, and logs network traffic so that IT professionals can go in and see the current state of the network.

For years, this would have been enough technology to keep most threats out. Nowadays, however, it’s really just getting started being vigilant. If you consider your network to be like an onion, you need to understand that each layer needs to have its own set of security protocols that typically come in the form of a dedicated access control system and a firewall.  This way, every “layer” is protected from its perimeter, to the applications, to the databases that hold all your data. This tiered access control system is designed specifically for your needs and is in place to do one thing: protect your assets.

It also works to protect your business against the biggest digital threat on the Internet: phishing attacks.

A phishing attack is where someone outside your network tries to infiltrate it by passing off some form of correspondence as legitimate. It’s all a fraud. Verizon, who does an annual study of cybersecurity, found that around 90 percent of all network attacks are the result of successful phishing attacks. Unfortunately, there is no piece of software out there that will make phishing attacks completely benign. That is why training is so important.

Training Your Staff

Training your staff about phishing (and cybersecurity in general) has to be a priority. You’ve spent a lot of capital and time building what you have, and the thought of losing it because you bullheadedly forged ahead without getting your staff trained up properly could be thought of as shortsighted.

A phishing attack is now the preferred method of hacking. Since security systems have evolved to be hard to crack, hackers now look to use your staff’s legitimate credentials to gain access to your network, applications, and databases. By training your staff about phishing, specifically what to look for, how to react when they come across phishing attacks, and what the consequences of a phishing attack can mean for your company, you should be in a better position to protect your network, infrastructure, and data against the onslaught of outside phishing threats.

To learn more about how to secure your network, train your staff, and acquire the technology you need to protect your business, reach out to Coleman Technologies today at (604) 513-9428.

As with any applications on your device, you’ll have a variety of first and third-party applications that can be set as your default apps. Here are the steps to make this happen:

• Click the Windows icon at the bottom left-hand side of the taskbar.
• Click on the gear icon to open up your Settings.
• Select Apps.
• In the left-hand column, click on Default Apps.
• In the right-hand side of the Default Apps screen, you can see the various types of files that will be opened by specific apps.

Changing your default video playback settings is also easy to do. From the Video playback option in the Apps section, you can enable streaming content at high dynamic range quality, process video for more enhanced quality, play back video in either a high or low resolution based on preference, and change how video is played based on battery life. You can pick from prioritizing video quality or battery life--whichever you prefer.

Before making any changes to your computer, we recommend speaking with the technology professionals at Coleman Technologies. This prevents you from making any changes to hardware or software settings that could cause frustrations for you and your staff. To learn more about the services we provide, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

USB Cable Types

The Universal Serial Bus cable connection is perhaps the most common. Its accessories and peripherals utilize the USB port, which is seen on most devices. However, there are many different types of USB technology, each of which are supported by various connections.

Type A connections support USB 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.1, with transmit speeds ranging from 1.5 MB/s to 1.25 GB/s. These connections are the most common ones found on at least one end of every USB cable.

Type B connections also support USB 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.1. These were once used for connecting a printer or similar device to a computer, but they are being slowly phased out.

Mini and Micro both support USB 2.0, with mini USB connections being used for some older devices. Those that don’t use mini USB connections have been replaced by Micro-USB, and even those are being phased out for Type C connections.

Type C connections, also sometimes referred to as USB-C, support USB 3.1, 3.2, and the upcoming USB 4 standard.

It’s likely that the future of USB technology is USB-C taking over, mainly due to the connection type and its backwards-compatibility, enabling much faster data transfers.

Display Cables

VGA Cables

The Video Graphics Array cable is less popular these days due to its analog video signal being replaced by digital. Even so, there is likely to be a VGA port on your video card or display.

DVI Cables

VGA cables were phased out during the turn of the century and replaced by Digital Visual Interface cables. DVI is known for having many different types, all of which have their own capabilities, but they have been replaced by modern display cable types at this point.

DisplayPort Cables

DisplayPort cables were introduced with the intention of replacing both VGA and DVI cables, as they are capable of transmitting both video and audio signals. There are many different kinds of DisplayPort out there, but the important thing to note is that they are compatible with each other. DisplayPort can also be used in conjunction with HDMI and USB if there is an adapter used. These days, DisplayPort is used to attach a monitor to another device.

HDMI Cables

High-Definition Multimedia Interface cables are used to send modern standard digital signals. Five different types of HDMI exist today, but it’s most likely that you’re familiar with Type A. You may have also seen Type C for digital cameras, or Type D for mobile devices.

Networking Cables

SATA

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment cables create a connection between a computer’s motherboard and a storage device. These offer quick data transfer speeds compared to their predecessors, the Integrated Drive Electronics cable.

eSATA

eSATA cables are basically the same as SATA cables, only for external devices rather than internal components. These connections aren’t as common anymore, as USB technology has grown so quickly that it has eclipsed their speed.

Ethernet

A local area network takes advantage of ethernet cables. These cables are those that connect to your modem, router, and computer. They are easy to distinguish from other cables, as they look quite similar to telephone cables from way back when.

We hope that we have cleared up the difference between some of the everyday cables, but honestly, managing them can be a pain. Coleman Technologies can help your business make heads and tails of the various cables your organization might need to manage. To learn more about what we can do for your business, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Initially, the advocacy of Internet Rights was just that: the right to have access to the Internet. While this isn’t a problem for as many people as it once was, some places still don’t have fair, affordable access to high-speed Internet service. Some nations, despite providing access, have Internet laws that subdue use due to an overlaying censorship. This issue, and the monetization of collected consumer data, are two of the hot-button issues today for Internet Rights advocates.

Lead Up

The Internet is a relatively new technology, especially in the manner it is being used by people today. As a result, there are different views on how these technologies are disseminated, who profits from them, and how non-controlling entities have their rights repressed. As a result, you’ll find from the early days of Internet rights advocacy, the largest voices were from organizations that found the equitable portion of the Internet either unnecessary or repressive to the rights of consumers.

Notice that the access to the Internet was not even on the roadmap. The nature of the early commercial Internet was such that it could be successfully described as libertarian. Through the end of the 1990s, as the first round of dot com investments started to tank, it became obvious that the technology would end up bigger than anyone had anticipated and needed regulation.

In the U.S. many fights have been undertaken in the subsequent 20 years. Many of which were pushed by Internet rights advocates. One of the most famous is:

Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997)

In an attempt to clean up what some people considered indecent content on the Internet (pornography and the like); and more accurately, to keep kids away from this content, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act. The ALCU, which is a well-known civil rights advocate group, filed suit. The provision was eliminated by two federal judges before being heard in front of the Supreme Court, which upheld the lower courts’ rulings. This was a major blow against censorship; paving the way for free expression on the Internet.

While the ALCU isn’t exactly an Internet Rights Advocate, the landmark case ushered in a new world of free speech on the Internet; and, it sets the tone for Internet rights advocates to this day.

Personal Privacy

Today there are many organizations looking to protect people on the Internet. Sometimes their views overlap, sometimes they don’t. One of these groups, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), is a major player in the fight to keep speech (and content) free from censorship on the Internet, the fight against the surveillance state, and most notably, the ongoing fight for individual privacy.

Businesses of all kinds, as well as government agencies have grown to take significant liberties with people’s personal information. Organizations like the ALCU and the EEF work tirelessly to get the topic of personal data privacy in front of decision makers.

Have you ever wondered how you just had a conversation with your friend via some type of app about fingerless gloves and now your sidebar on every website is now filled with fingerless glove ads? Most users don’t fully understand that organizations that you interact with online keep a profile on you. All of your actions, any personal or financial information that you share, and more is stored in a file that is often packaged and sold off by those organizations to advertising firms.

These advocates, among the other issues they stand up for, are trying to push the issue of personal data privacy. The main point of contention is that companies profit off of the information people provide, and since this information is very clearly personal in nature, it is their belief that individuals are being taken advantage of. This debate has been ratcheted up significantly with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that intends to protect individual information.

While it might be a matter of time before the U.S. gets a data privacy law in the same vein as the GDPR, Internet rights advocates will continue to act in the public’s favor on this issue, and many others.

Net Neutrality & Access to All

One of the biggest fights that Internet rights advocates are undertaking is against the companies that deliver the Internet itself: The Internet service providers (ISP). For those of you who don’t know, over the past several years the U.S. Government created mandates that forced ISPs to provide access to applications and content without favoring any, even if they are the ones that use the most bandwidth.

The theory is that the typical Internet user only does so much on the web. They typically access the same sites and use their Internet connection for the same things. This creates a situation where ISPs, using market adjustments would want to get more money per byte than if users used a variety of sites to do the same. With federal control, they were forced into charging a flat rate.

The net neutrality laws that were instituted in 2015 were repealed in 2017, as controlling bureaucrats argued that there were enough people without fair access to the Internet and the only way to persuade the ISPs to commit to investing in infrastructure that would curb this problem is by repealing the net neutrality laws. Needless to say, this caused quite a stir.

Internet rights advocates were quick to point out investment in Infrastructure is in these ISP’s best interest and giving them the ability to slow down Internet speeds as they see fit is not good for consumers. Unfortunately for most Americans, these ISPs are the companies you have to get your Internet service from if you want speeds that allow you to use it the way you want. Advocates are still trying to do what they can to educate people about the benefits of net neutrality and have set up websites with information and for people to give their support. Organizations like the aforementioned ACLU and EFF,  the American Library Association, and Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and Free Press Action currently sponsor www.battleforthenet.com, a one-stop site for all things net neutrality.

Advocacy can go a long way toward giving a voice to people who may not think they have one. What Internet-related topics do you find to be problematic? Leave your thoughts in the comments and subscribe to our blog.

To begin, let’s briefly review the basic principles of BYOD practices. In essence, rather than providing each employee with a company-supplied device, an employee is allowed to bring in a device that they own and leverage it for work purposes.

Why BYOD Has Become Popular in Workplaces

On the surface, BYOD seems to be the perfect solution - there are even statistics that help to support this position. For instance, companies who embrace BYOD practices save around $350 each year, per employee. Furthermore, using portable devices for work (much like what would be used as part of a Bring Your Own Device practice) has been shown to save employees approximately an hour each day, increasing their productivity by about a third.

This is just the tip of the BYOD-benefits iceberg. There are much more, including:

Access to Better Technology

If you were to list any business’ technology priorities, security and productivity should top the list… but oftentimes, frugality wins the day. Budgetary restrictions and a preference for tried-and-tested solutions frequently means that investments into more recent solutions are often pushed by the wayside. After all, what if the expensive new technology doesn’t work properly? This is frequently why businesses find themselves making due with solutions that really should be replaced. On the other hand, employees likely have no such qualms when they purchase their own devices.

BYOD policies allow a business’ employees to replace their outdated solutions with the reliability of newer, more up-to-date devices… leading to happier, more productive employees.

Reduced Financial Toll on the Business

Like we mentioned, it is fairly common for budgetary concerns to be the driving factor of many business decisions. It isn’t that the company doesn’t want to replace the aging workstations scattered around the office… it just isn’t in the budget. Before Bring Your Own Device emerged, businesses were stuck in a few different money pits. Between providing their employees with devices, maintaining and replacing these devices when they went faulty, and all the other expenses that come from keeping up an IT infrastructure, employers were stuck with a hefty bill.

Nowadays, with many people investing in their own devices and their accessibility, these expenses can largely evaporate. The employer’s investment can be effectively limited to securing access to these devices, allowing funds to be spent on other meaningful initiatives.

Employee Satisfaction

We’ve all experienced the struggle of trying to do work on equipment that just isn’t equipped for what we are trying to do. It can feel like trying to play Yahtzee with loaded dice - it just isn’t going to work, no matter how much effort is put forth. This is the other side of the example that preceded this one. If the aging workstations scattered around the office aren’t replaced due to budgetary concerns, some employees are going to be stuck using them… and they aren’t going to be happy.

As we alluded to as we described the effects that access to improved solutions can bring, an employee who isn’t being hamstrung by their technology is simply going to be more productive and happier with their working situation.

Clearly, BYOD isn’t something that should be dismissed without at least some consideration, but that isn’t to say that it is a perfect solution. There are also potential issues that need to be addressed as a BYOD policy is considered.

The Potential Issues of BYOD

Distractions

For every productivity application available on the Google Play Store, there is at least one application that is decidedly unproductive… at least, in terms of your business and its operations. While you could take steps to prevent these kinds of applications from appearing on devices that you provide, there isn’t much you can do about your employees downloading whatever they want onto their own.

Loss of Control

This is a big issue for businesses, as there are a multitude of ways that their losing control over the devices on their network could impact them. The policies that once prevented vulnerabilities from being leveraged can’t just be installed on an employee’s device without their consent, which many employees may be hesitant to give. This problem becomes even larger if an employee is fired or quits - what happens to the data on their device? How can a company be sure that a current employee isn’t putting sensitive company data at risk? What if the device is lost?

Compliance Shortcomings

Finally, you have to consider how your BYOD implementation will interact with any other compliances or requirements that your business is beholden to. In the past, a shockingly low number of IT leaders and professionals were confident that their BYOD policies met the standards placed by a variety of requirements, including HIPAA and Dodd-Frank.

How Can I Leverage BYOD Securely?

Fortunately, there are a few means of adopting a BYOD approach within your business while mitigating the concerns described above. The simplest way is to simply enforce a use policy, outlining the guidelines that your employees must follow if they wish to use their personal devices for work purposes.

Coleman Technologies can help you to create and enforce these guidelines, as well as optimize your use of your IT in many other ways. To learn more, reach out to our team by calling (604) 513-9428.

Public vs Private

The public cloud is typically used by businesses that don’t have the infrastructure, or the budget to acquire said infrastructure, for hosting cloud-based applications or services. Public cloud solutions are those which are hosted by the provider and accessed remotely through an Internet browser, mobile client, and associated account. They are particularly valuable for businesses that don’t have the means to reliably host their own solutions.

On the other hand, a private cloud solution is used by small businesses that have a means of affording and maintaining the solution. This means administering maintenance to the software and hardware associated with the system, as well as monitoring it for security purposes. Basically, when you go with a private cloud solution, it’s much more involved than a simple public cloud system, so you should be prepared to deal with plenty of issues that wouldn’t be an issue if the solution was hosted elsewhere.

What to Consider

When considering the implementation of a private cloud infrastructure, be sure to consider the following:

• Security: You’ll have more control over your solution if you host it privately onsite, but you’ll also need to adequately protect it.
• Access: Will employees have access to your organization’s cloud solution while out of the office? Hint: They better, otherwise there isn’t a reason to have a cloud. Since your cloud-based applications are stored on your in-house infrastructure, you’ll need to make sure accounts are set up properly and protected.
• Management: Managing a cloud solution is no joke, and since you’re hosting it on your own private server, it comes with all the annoyances and benefits. You can customize your cloud solution to suit your needs, so be sure to understand what you need beforehand so you can leverage it to the best of your ability.
• Maintenance: Taking care of a cloud solution is also a major responsibility, so expect any in-house IT technicians to have a lot more on their plate than they already do.

Coleman Technologies can help you mitigate the issues of a private cloud infrastructure by hosting your private cloud on our own servers, thereby removing the burden it places on your organization. To learn more about this cloud strategy, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Modern VR Systems

After nearly 30 years of development, VR has been adopted by a miniscule number of companies. It has, for the most part, made the biggest difference in the entertainment industry, where Samsung and Google have a lot of influence. Sony has also established itself as a major player in the VR gaming industry with its Playstation 4. In terms of business, however, these options aren’t necessarily feasible of beneficial.

Two of the most competitive options in the commercial virtual reality space are the HTC Vive (and Vive Pro) and the Oculus Rift. Oculus is owned by Facebook and has led in VR sales, while the HTC Vive and Vive Pro provides a platform for high-end computing systems that are capable of using VR. These two systems work together to provide high-end VR experiences, even if it’s mostly for gaming.

These VR options give users the ability to bring themselves into a virtual world, thus providing developers with great opportunities to build out software to capitalize on it. The applications built in VR give users the opportunity to explore the earth and space in a way that can immerse them in a simulated reality.

The Immediate Future of VR

The future of VR is leaning more in the direction of reality; unlike great journeys or expeditions to places like the moon or the bottom of the sea, VR will be used to create educational resources and training software.

Some manufacturers have already begun to anticipate this shift, using services like Microsoft’s Mixed Reality (MR) devices with hopes of business integration in 2020 a possibility. While not true virtual reality, this platform integrates virtual elements into reality, providing business professionals with great new options to achieve their goals. It’s safe to say that businesses will find some use for these virtual sandboxes to either improve performance or work out daring new ways to accomplish tasks.

What are your thoughts on VR? Let us know in the comments and be sure to subscribe to our blog.

As we begin, it is important that we acknowledge that the Android operating system has been granted FIDO2 certification. In other words, the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance has given the Android OS their seal of approval in regard to the authentication standards that the Alliance has set.

What Does This Mean?

In very simple terms, any Android device running 7.0 or higher with the latest Google Chrome update installed can be used as part of a two-factor authentication strategy - more specifically, as a security key. This includes the support that FIDO2 offers for onboard fingerprint scanners as a means of identity authentication. Currently, this authentication standard is only supported by Android, with no indication of Apple devices incorporating it.

In no uncertain terms, this all means that passwords may soon be phased out.

Abandoning Passwords

Passwords have been the standardized form of authenticating one’s identity for quite some time, despite the potential issues that are present with them. How often have we seen just how many ways a determined cybercriminal has to obtain a password? Between insecure databases filled with credentials and unfortunately successful phishing schemes, millions of accounts have been exposed - and that isn’t even taking all the times an insecure password was guessed into account.

The biggest weakness that any password has is the fact that it can be shared at all, that someone other than the owner can use it. Over any other reason, this is why FIDO2 is likely to become as popular as it is expected to be. When was the last time you successfully shared a thumbprint with someone, after all? Furthermore, FIDO2 keeps all of the information that is pulled from its biometrics onboard the device, keeping it safe from being stolen on the Internet.

As an added bonus, FIDO2 won’t allow the user to input their fingerprint’s biometric data into websites that don’t have sufficient security measures in place.

How to Use Your Android Device as a FIDO2 Security Key

In order to leverage your Android device as a security key, you need to make sure that it meets a few benchmarks. First and foremost, you’ll need to be running at least Android 7.0, with the latest version of Chrome installed. You will also need to have Bluetooth activated, and a Google account with two-step verification enabled.

This is somewhat simple to do. Logging into your Google account, access the Security section. Here, you’ll find the option to activate 2-Step Verification. After a short process, your smartphone will work as a security key.

Authenticating Google Sign-Ins with Your Phone

As long as you have enabled both Bluetooth and Location on your mobile device, any Google service you try to access will prompt you to confirm the sign-in attempt via your phone. This process is exceptionally simple - all you have to do is press Yes on your phone and wait. Once you’ve done so, you can confidently access your Google account, securely. As more developers adopt FIDO2, this enhanced security will only appear more often.

What do you think of this new authentication method? Share your impressions in the comments! While you’re there, let us know if there are any other tips you’d like us to cover!

The first thing you need to remember is that, while your unhappy customer or client may not be correct, they are always right. What does this mean? Simple - even if they misinterpreted what they were entitled to through your services, you have the obligation to make them happy. This is not to say that you kowtow to every demand a customer makes, regardless of how ludicrous it is… you just need to make sure they stay happy.

How can you do this? It all boils down to communication.

How to Communicate With an Unhappy Client

Chances are, you’re going to find out that a client was unhappy by reading a review that they leave somewhere online - perhaps on Facebook, or on Google, or on a third-party review website. What they will have to say may upset you. That’s fine. Nobody likes to hear that there is something wrong with one of their endeavors. You have every right to be a little upset - just don’t let that upset seep into your conversation with your unhappy client.

After all, in their eyes, they have every right to be upset as well.

Therefore, once you’ve regained a cooler composure, you need to respond directly and politely to the negative review. While this initial interaction should be public, offer to continue your conversation in a less public way, in an offline forum. If the reviewer accepts, try to come to a mutually beneficial compromise with them. This will help to insulate you from a rash decision.

This brings up another important point - while you may really want to, you should never just remove a negative review. Not only will that make it look like you are hiding something (not good), it also squanders the opportunity to make lemonade out of your reviewer’s lemons. Again, try to make whatever issue your reviewer had right, and ask them to revise their review once things have been settled. If you play your cards right, the result could be a much better review, describing the care you put into fixing their issue.

Reviews Can Be Good, Too!

Whenever they are, you have another opportunity to embrace by responding to them.

I can almost hear you now: “Wait, if a reviewer is happy, doesn’t that mean I’ve done what I had to do?”

In a way, yes. If someone is willing to leave a positive review of your services, you clearly were able to strike a chord with them. However, while responding to a negative review could be somewhat accurately seen as damage control, responding to a positive review has a very different motivation to it.

Look at it this way: anyone who is willing to take the time out of their day to speak highly of you online is an invaluable ally to have. Positive reviews and negative reviews are very different things, especially in that people are generally more inclined to leave negative feedback if they have the opportunity.

Reflecting on this, it only makes sense to take the time and respond to positive reviews as well. A positive review is more or less a confirmation of a successful onboarding process - to keep these contacts engaged, you need to continue communicating with them beyond the point that their invoice is settled.

Are you happy with our services or our content? If so, we’d love to hear about it. Leave us a review or drop us a line in the comments!

Not anymore.
A concept called managed IT services has taken the business world by storm. Experienced technicians work diligently with some of today’s most powerful monitoring software to proactively manage a business’ network and infrastructure, keeping technology working better longer, and reducing downtime to a point where it isn’t the huge problem it traditionally has been.

Coleman Technologies is a proud managed IT services vendor. With our technicians’ expertise, we are able to offer our clients a massive cache of services that include:

• Remote and onsite support
• Around-the-clock monitoring
• Help desk
• Server, workstation, and mobile device support
• Networking support
• Software patch management
• Stronger cyber and network security
• Data backup and recovery
• Professional technology consulting
• Periodic business reviews
• Vendor management
• And more

It is increasingly rare for many small or medium-sized businesses to hire onsite IT staff. If you don’t have the support your technology needs to function properly, you are looking at variable capital expenses that can, and likely will come to pass at exactly the wrong moment.

Coleman Technologies’s IT services provide your business with access to dedicated and knowledgeable IT technicians that are well positioned with some of the most powerful technology management software on the market; and, does it for a predictable monthly rate.

If you would like to get rid of your IT headaches for good, and kick downtime to the curb, call us today at (604) 513-9428.

Those familiar with the online version of Gmail will find all of this quite familiar, as Smart Compose has been predicting their next words for some time now. It will seem newer to those more familiar with the Gmail application in macOS and Windows, as it hasn’t been available there until now. 

Using Smart Compose on Android Devices

The first thing you’ll have to have in order to use Smart Compose is an active Google account, with the latest version of the Gmail application installed on your chosen device. As you type, Smart Compose will present its predictive text suggestions that a user can either accept, or just keep typing to ignore. While this form of machine learning is pretty basic, it does demonstrate how a device can “learn” how a user is most likely to use it - in this case, what word is likely to come next in the user’s sentence.

Turning Smart Compose Off (and On Again)

Of course, some users may find these suggestions inconvenient or distracting. That’s totally fair, and means that these users should deactivate the Smart Compose feature. Access the Gmail app’s menu by pressing the hamburger icon at the top left. You should see your Settings from there. You will be asked to choose from the accounts that have access to your device. Once you’ve selected the appropriate account, look under General settings to find Smart Compose. Use the toggle switch to activate it or deactivate it as you please.

While Smart Compose may not be quite as impressive as the artificial intelligence that appears in feature films, it has one major advantage over them: it can actually be used to benefit your business. For other ways that you can give your business operations a boost through technology solutions and tips, subscribe to our blog! You can also reach out to us directly by calling (604) 513-9428.

Password DOs
Password security doesn’t have to have a nuisance. Here are some of the easiest best practices to follow when building a password.

• The longer the password, the better: Long passwords are better for security than short passwords, but only if the password contains a varied-enough string of characters. You should aim for at least 16 characters.
• Special characters, numbers, and symbols are great for security: A strong password will contain both forms of letters, numbers, and symbols.
• Alphanumerics are ideal: If you’re trying to improve security, use alphanumeric passcodes. Try replacing a lower-case “i” with an exclamation point, or an “a” with the “@” symbol.
• Passphrases work wonders: If you find passwords are hard to remember, a passphrase might help. Use a short phrase that is easier to remember, but difficult to guess. A good example is, “iL0veW@ffle$2much” instead of “ILoveWafflesTooMuch.”
• Password variety is key: It might seem counter-intuitive to use multiple passwords that are difficult to remember, but it’s much more secure to use different passwords for each of your accounts. If the same password is used for each account, all it takes is one breach to expose multiple accounts to risk.

Password DON’Ts
Of course, best practices are more than just what you practice; it also includes what you don’t practice. Here are some pointers.

• Avoid words like “password”: Some of the most common passwords out there include “password” and “notapassword.” You should avoid using these whenever possible, as they are often the first ones to be cracked.
• Avoid key strings like “qwerty”: Strings of characters with consecutive keys, like “qwerty” and “12345678,” should be avoided at all costs.
• Don’t include sensitive information: You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to find sensitive or personal information about an individual--especially if you are the target of a hacker. To make sure a hacker can’t use any information contained in your password against you, avoid using anything like this in your password altogether.

Coleman Technologies can equip your business with a password manager to improve network security and better manage account passwords. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

What Is Phishing?
Phishing scams can be considered any digital attempt against your organization to extort credentials or other important information. The method doesn’t really matter, though it does change the way that phishing is identified. For example, more targeted attempts at specific individuals are called “spear phishing,” whereas impersonating a company’s CEO is considered “whaling.” Either way, the end result that the phishing attempt hopes for is that someone will fall for their tricks.

Vectors for Attack
The first thing to remember about phishing attempts is that they don’t happen exclusively through email. They can come in a variety of ways, including through social media applications, phone calls, and other outlets that you might not suspect without a little predisposition toward them. Here are some of the most common ways you might encounter a phishing attack:

• Email messages, where senders spoof addresses and try to convince users that they are someone important to your organization.
• Phone calls, where callers impersonate someone you know or someone of authority, like a government official or business leader.
• Social media messaging is a more personal method of phishing in which identity thieves try to impersonate people you know in your personal life.

The Giveaways
A good rule to keep in mind is that phishing attacks tend to be rather suspicious in nature. For example, if someone who doesn’t normally send you messages suddenly reaches out, and it’s seemingly uncharacteristic of them, be a little suspicious--particularly if they are using language that seems unlikely. Here are some other tips to identify phishing attacks before they have enough of a chance to be dangerous:

• Spelling and grammar errors: More often than not, spelling and grammar errors in phishing messages are quite commonplace, and they signify that something is not as it seems. If you see lots of these errors, you need to be very careful about navigating the messages.
• Immense sense of urgency: If the message prompts you to take action immediately, either out of fear or because it tries to convince you it’s in your best interest, approach it with an extra side of caution. Phishing attempts try to get users to take action as soon as possible; this means that users aren’t thinking things through or discovering that the message isn’t legitimate.
• Suspicious account activity: On social media, if you have a friend who you haven’t heard from in a very long time, chances are it’s not actually the friend reaching out to you if they need money or want you to click on a link. In cases like this, always use discretion.

To limit the damage done by phishing attempts, consider the following measures:

• Implement a spam blocking solution. While it might not help with more specialized phishing attempts, it should limit the most generic ones.
• Educate your employees--this point speaks for itself. If users know what to watch out for, they will be less likely to make mistakes that expose sensitive data.

Does your organization need a way to protect itself against phishing attacks? We can provide your business with the training required to best secure itself. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

Artificial Intelligence
AI might be primitive in a lot of ways at the moment, but this doesn’t mean that it’s not growing in popularity. Machines can get smarter the way that humans do when they perform the same function several times, but unlike humans, machines don’t have various emotions to hold them back. Here are a few ways that a business can leverage AI to its advantage:

• Processing large amounts of data
• Personalizing customer experiences
• Operational automation
• Security
• Predicting demand
• And more

Businesses might have expensive operational issues that demand AI-integrated solutions to handle them, thus expanding the market and allowing for rapid adoption. Automation in particular is being adopted at an alarming rate, and this is driving the demand for artificial intelligence.

Blockchain
Blockchain has been making headlines in the news, fueled by the cryptocurrency fads that have utilized the technology. Blockchain creates a public ledger that is distributed rather than centralized, with each block storing all of the data that is relevant to a transaction. Once this data is captured, it can’t be altered without changing all data that has come afterward. This presents considerable data security benefits.

Some businesses hope to use this increased security to their benefit using a more distributed system. The more people who utilize the blockchain, the more we learn about it, meaning more tools are created to help organizations leverage the blockchain. Here are some of the ways that organizations can utilize the blockchain:

• Managing supply chains
• Identity management
• Recordkeeping & archiving
• Data security
• And more

Blockchain is so popular that even Oracle’s head of blockchain development claims that half of businesses will find a use for blockchain in the next three years.

5G
The past 40 years have shown that wireless technology has a lot of opportunity to improve. Wireless broadband will see an increase from the 4G used today to 5G. In fact, it could potentially change the world. Data speeds could reach as high as 1GB/second or higher, giving many businesses access to the following benefits:

• Faster speeds
• Reduced Latency
• Greater Capacity
• Improved Battery Life
• And more

Innovation will drive businesses to adopt faster technologies than ever before, and Qualcomm has found that 5G will become a “general purpose technology” in the near future, used so much that it will be akin to electricity or vehicles.

Virtual Reality
The consensus is that virtual reality is pretty neat, but not practical in the business environment. Unfortunately, this is far from the actual reality of the situation, as hardware and software advances have given organizations the means to use virtual reality in ways previously unheard of. VR is great for immersing users in virtual environments that can be used for practically any purpose, including training simulations, talent management, product design, and shared experience.

What are some other emerging technologies that you think will be helpful for businesses in the near future? Let us know in the comments.

The Manufacturer’s Puzzle

Making products can be a bit of a puzzle. You have to fit the right parts together to create the product. Each of those parts comes from somewhere. Some you need to create yourself, but most of the time there are companies that manufacturers acquire the resources from. The process is called procurement.

Procurement is the first of many puzzles that a manufacturer has to solve. Essentially, the products they create have a purpose. Many small and medium-sized manufacturers tend to make the products that make up larger products (that other manufacturers build). As a result, their revenue typically comes from supplying other manufacturers with pieces that will make up the products they are manufacturing. To streamline the procurement process, many companies have started relying on automated systems to tell them when they need to re-up.

Once the resources have been acquired, now it’s time to make the products. Of course, the costliest part of any manufacturing company is the actual manufacturing of the products. This is mainly because the capital costs of purchasing the machinery needed to manufacture goods, coupled with the operational costs of payroll and downtime caused by machinery malfunction (and the subsequent maintenance required), adds up to a significant investment. Companies today are searching for new ways around these costs. Enhancements in automation have made it possible for the smaller manufacturer to trim their production costs, while keeping their output static.

The last piece of the puzzle for the manufacturer is the distribution of the products to consumers. In many cases the consumers in this scenario are retail businesses. They need the costs to be low enough to be able to offer them to their customers with a markup.  Problems with distribution, like problems in the procurement stages, can be devastating to the manufacturer’s ability to create a positive revenue stream.

Where IT Fits

The entire process can be aided by information technology, but manufacturers tend to look at things in stages...like their workflow. Typically, organizations that have leveraged automation through the use of software systems, find that they are able to have more transparency and less overall inefficiency than organizations that don’t. Some software platforms that modern manufacturers are using include:

• Customer Relationship Management - This software helps a company streamline their customer service. It’s used to manage leads, opportunities, and customers.
• Supply Chain Management - This software helps a company control their entire supply chain from procurement to distribution.
• Inventory Management - Manages stock and standardizes and automates replenishment.
• Asset Tracking - Using sensors, every product and resource can be tracked to provide efficiency.

These solutions and more can be found in what is called an Enterprise Resource Planning software. While ERP software is comprehensive and offers organizations a lot of benefits, smaller manufacturers may not need the immersive control that many ERP systems provide. Finding the right software to meet your needs is important to ensure that your business can be as effective as it can be.

The IT professionals at Coleman Technologies can help you find the software you need to gain full control over all of your business’ processes. Call us today to learn more at (604) 513-9428.

What’s At Stake?
Imagine a scenario where your business has allowed an external entity entry to your network. What kind of sensitive documents are found on it? Think about all your trade secrets being stolen and sold somewhere on the black market, and that’s not even considering the repercussions of any personally identifiable information being stolen. And when your business has a reputation of network security being poor, you might start having trouble finding people who are willing to work with you. Plus, the fines associated with security breaches could be enough to force your business to file for bankruptcy.

Security Solutions for Business
Generally speaking, the most common security measures you will see for small businesses are enterprise-level solutions that are accessible, yet powerful at the same time. Among these are Unified Threat Management, Virtual Private Networks, and Mobile Device Management. All of these services provide some level of security for businesses that need it, but in different parts of operations. They are all equally important, though, and you should consider each of them to optimize network security.

• Unified Threat Management: A UTM solution combines four enterprise-level solutions into one tool, providing a plethora of protection from online threats. A UTM includes a firewall, antivirus program, spam blocking system, and content filtering solution, all to minimize the chance of threats infiltrating your network and eliminate the ones that do.
• Virtual Private Networks: VPNs are critical to keeping your data secure while accessing it outside the protection of your network. VPNs offer encrypted access to data found on your network, eliminating the possibility of onlookers stealing data while it’s in transit.
• Mobile Device Management: With so many mobile devices in the workplace, it’s no surprise that users are taking data with them while out of the office. Without proper measures in place, data could be put at risk. Mobile device management allows your organization to control consenting devices through the use of whitelisting and blacklisting applications, remote wiping, and user access control. This creates a safety net that your business can fall back on if a device is ever lost or stolen.

Implementing the right security measures can be challenging, to say the least. Coleman Technologies can help your business implement useful new additions to your security infrastructure. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

 What You Need to Know About Cybersecurity

In order to completely understand cybersecurity, you first need to understand what it is, and what you need to protect. Your organization needs to have a cybersecurity structure that covers the following subjects:

• Your Network - Network security strategies typically protect the network and infrastructure from intrusion-whether that be direct intrusion or via the dispersal of malware.  
• Your Applications - Whether your applications are hosted in the cloud or in your own onsite servers, application security protects programs that have access to all your data.
• Your Data - Data security strategies are created to add additional layers of protection to any data you can’t afford to have shared or stolen.
• Your Disaster Recovery - Systems that are deliberately set up to protect your digital assets in case of a disaster need their own protection.
• Policies - In order for you to properly protect your network and infrastructure from your staff, you need to have some very forthcoming policies set out so there are expectations attached to your cybersecurity initiatives.

Let’s take a look at the security makeup of a well-protected business:

The Perimeter

There are several layers to any effective cybersecurity strategy. The outermost layer of any major computing network is, by definition, the parameter (although security professionals today have more considerations to make than ever before). It is essentially the moat around the castle. It typically includes:

• Outside firewalls
• Intrusion Detection System/Intrusion Prevention System (IDS/IPS)
• Data loss prevention
• Secure DMZs
• Antivirus & Anti-malware

One qualification that should be explained is that many organizations look to cloud-hosted solutions to improve organizational collaborative capabilities, reduce capital costs, and to add useful and scalable computing resources, among other benefits. Some IT professionals have stopped using the moat and castle analogy since with cloud systems in tow, the actual perimeter of the network reaches inside the very place that perimeter security is securing against.

In cybersecurity circles, the dedicated secure perimeter strategy has been replaced by the “Zero Trust” strategy. This system is one where validation is paramount. This also makes it very resource intensive. If everyone is a possible threat - which they are - building near-impenetrable defense requires this type of diligence.

Network Security

This layer is what many businesses prioritize. Think of your network as a thoroughfare to all of your applications and data; and, while you still need to design and implement a strategy to protect those systems (more on that later), keeping your network free from obstructions and potential dangers is a must. An organization’s network security includes:

• Access control
• Message security
• Wireless security
• Remote access
• Content filtering
• IDS/IDP
• Additional firewalls
• Software patching
• Data Backup

Network security is crucial for any business because once someone gets access to the network, unless applications, databases, and the like are individually protected, any infiltrator worth his/her salt will be able to corrupt and/or steal the information they are seeking to corrupt/steal from there. This is why it is important that every person in your organization is aware of, and in constant compliance of, static rules that govern your organization’s network security strategy.

Sure, most of the heavy lifting is going to be done by your IT technicians, whether they are employees of your organization or outsourced experts. Putting in place the strategies and products necessary to keep the network safe from the outside, and providing the staff training that’s needed to keep it secure from the inside, are both critical parts of a business’ network security strategy.

Furthermore, in order to really secure your network from harm, you, without question, need to back up your data. Ensuring that you have a workable copy of your business’ day-to-day data is essential for it to stave of ruin in the case it is inundated with a disaster: malware attack or otherwise.

End Points

To the average employee, endpoint security is simply just a part of network security, but for the conscientious organization, ensuring there is endpoint security in place to protect any device that is remotely connected to the business’ network. These include IoT devices, smartphones, and other network attached devices that infiltrators could use to gain access to the computing network. Some of the technology used to protect endpoints include:

• Antivirus & Anti-malware
• Encryption
• Access control
• Device Firewall
• Virtual Private Networks
• Password managers
• Endpoint detection and response (EDR)
• IDS/IPS

Since a lot of organizations subscribe to a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy, there are often a lot of devices that have to be protected so that the network can be. Today, larger enterprises are routinely attempting to circumvent any attempts at infiltration, but smaller organizations typically use strategies like two-factor authentication to ensure that the people--and devices--that can access network-attached data are safe for employees to access that data on.

Applications

Application security, again, is often seen as an element of network security, but ensuring that all the software that you utilize is properly updated and has had any potential vulnerabilities patched is an important part of securing your applications. The most pronounced strategy used to secure software is patch management, which, like its name suggests, is the act of patching potential vulnerabilities as to not leave holes in your network.

Data

Finally, we get to data. Securing data is often the least priority since most of the other security protocols put in place are put there to do exactly that...protect data. If an organization thinks it needs additional security on its data, however, there are some options that can help keep specific data secure. These include

• Identity & Access Management (IAM)
• Drive encryption
• Data classification

Since every piece of security that you deploy is put in place to protect your organization’s data from theft or compromise, there is a whole other side to data security: education. In order to ensure that your employees don’t put your organization’s cybersecurity efforts at risk, you need to be able to properly train your staff on the best practices of individual data security, and how to approach the outside threats they very well might encounter. Knowledge of how to handle phishing emails and messages, social engineering, and other nefarious practices will always be a benefit to the organization, so prioritizing employee engagement in mitigating threats is essential to any business cyber security strategy.

How does your organization stack up? Do you prioritize cyber security training? Do you secure every layer of your business’ IT infrastructure? If there is any doubt, call the IT experts at Coleman Technologies to talk about how you can better protect your business from data loss, theft, and malware attacks. To learn more call us today at (604) 513-9428.