Decatur Computers Inc. Blog

Windows 10 is a valuable asset for any business, but are you taking full advantage of it? We’ll discuss some of the lesser known tips and tricks that your organization can take advantage of to get more out of your business technology.

Microsoft Word is a great tool that your business may use for word processing, but it can do so much more. With the right tools, you’ll be able to take advantage of many different tricks that could change the way you see Microsoft Word. Here are four neat tips that you may not have thought of.

Digital communication has changed a lot over the years. Nowadays, special characters are commonplace for the modern person to communicate with. The special characters that are most frequently used are called emojis. They have become a staple in mobile communications, even among professionals. After all, who hasn’t responded to a message with an emoji thumbs up or a smiley face?

It would be hard to find someone who has never experienced the feeling of a time crunch, a situation where someone has more to do than they had hours to do it in. This feeling can be reduced by enhancing productivity through better time management. For our tip this week, let’s discuss some methods to improve time management within your office.

Google Drive is certainly a worthy cloud solution, and if you have the good fortune of using it for your organization, you know that it can offer everything from word processing to file storage options. However, there are always hidden features that can help you improve the way you use Google Drive. We’ll walk about three of the lesser known ways to use Drive that can help you better use it for your organization’s benefit.

Back in 1995, scammers pulled the first phishing attack. They took the identity of AOL employees and requested the billing information of users through instant messaging. More sophisticated phishing attempts have evolved over the years, culminating in the commonly-seen email phishing attack, which tricks users into handing over personal or sensitive information. Phishing attacks can be seen through, so we’ll show you how you can identify threats before they become a problem.

Spyware is a form of malware that can quickly become a big problem. For today’s tip, we’ll go over exactly what spyware is, and how you can keep your business safe from it.

Anyone who has taken a stroll through YouTube knows that people love to upload music to the video sharing website. However, YouTube doesn’t inherently offer a built-in repeat function for playing videos, so if you want to watch a video multiple times, you’re out of the loop. Fortunately, there are numerous online services that allow you to repeat videos.

No matter how much we wish it weren’t so, all PCs have limited amounts of storage space on them. This means that the user will eventually run out of space, and they will have to find a way to resolve this issue as soon as possible so as to avoid unsaved work. Plus, your performance will take a hit, so it’s best to look for a way to resolve this issue. Thankfully, a free tool like WinDirStat can help you free up space by identifying where all of your free space is being taken up, and how you can make some wiggle room with your PC’s largest files.

You know Microsoft Word as a word processor that lets your organization compose documents. Yet, you may not know the extent to which you can use this application. You might be surprised to hear this, but you can even perform mathematical calculations using Microsoft Word!

You might spend a significant amount of time thinking about your business’s security practices, but the same can’t be said for your organization’s employees. Unless you give them a reason to care about security, they likely won’t. The resulting apathy could eventually become serious problems that could hinder operations in the long run, or worse, expose your business to threats that could put your employees and your clients in danger.

It doesn’t matter what your role is within your organization--you’ll still be using the same hardware solutions to accomplish your daily tasks. Keyboards, wireless mouses, external microphones, and just about any normal USB device, all use drivers that allow for device compatibility. Unfortunately, if these drivers aren’t installed and kept up-to-date, your technology’s performance can suffer, as well as your productivity.

WHOOPS! This might be one of the more PG-rated things you would say if you dropped your phone, and perhaps additional colorful words would follow the moment you discovered that your phone’s screen is now cracked. If you find yourself in such a predicament, what do you do next? We’ll help you deal with this unfortunate circumstance in the best way possible.

A connectivity to the cloud is a great opportunity that your organization can leverage to its advantage, but only if it’s done well. No two businesses will have the same exact configuration when it comes to cloud, as the needs and responsibilities that are accomplished through that cloud solution will change. This week’s tip is dedicated to helping you discover which cloud solution is right for you.

An Internet connection is one of the most crucial parts of running a modern business. However, this type of reliance can be crippling in the event that the Internet goes down. What can you do to make sure that downtime is limited to a minimum?

Security issues can have any number of causes, meaning that every business needs to have a comprehensive security solution. This doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t additional, small measures to implement that can give your organization’s security an added boost. Here, we’ll talk about two: keeping your software patched, and identifying social engineering attempts.

When you turn on your device’s Wi-Fi capabilities, do you ever take the time to look at some of the names of your neighbors’ connections? You’ll see some rather boring names as well; some might just use the name of their organization or the family’s name, or even just the default SSID used by the router. The fact of the matter is that a wireless network name that’s easy to gloss over is a best practice for network security.

Oh no! You start slapping your pockets, already knowing what you’re about to confirm--your mobile device is missing. With the reliance we have on these devices, losing yours is enough to send you into a relative panic. However, this panic may be avoided by implementing a reliable solution specifically for locating a lost device.

With Google Chrome’s Incognito mode, you can privately browse the web, but you may have noticed that Incognito mode also disables your extensions by default. This isn’t a big deal, but it can be an annoyance that you’d prefer not to deal with. Thankfully, there’s a good way to make sure that specific extensions stay enabled, even in Incognito mode.

Before we dive into this week’s tip, it has to be said: if you have a choice, you should probably avoid using a public computer. As a rule, these machines feature minimal security precautions, along with maximum risk to any data accessed by the PC. Although, if a situation ever arises in which you have no choice but to use a public computer, be sure to follow these security best practices.