Coleman Technologies Blog

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 Those that don’t use mini USB connections have been replaced by Micro-USB, and even those are being phased out for Type C connections.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.