Month: August 2018

Some people think that technology has become too great a part of our lives. A few decades ago, personal hardware wasn’t a thing…and now we’re all running around with more devices than we know what to do with. But then the people on the other side of the argument say that sure, there’s a lot of technology, but it’s making our lives easier. And it’s hard to argue with that – or at least most of the time. There’s nothing more frustrating – and nothing that will make us yearn for the dark ages – than technology that isn’t working as it should. If you’re in that position, take a read below, where we outline some of the reasons why this could be.

Outdated Hardware

We spend a lot of money on our technology, and, as such, we expect it to last for a long time. But of course, technology isn’t supposed to last forever! Some people think that companies practice something called ‘planned obsolescence,’ in which technology is intentionally planned to stop working after a set period. There’s some truth to this – they’re not breaking their necks making their technology immortal – but the less cynical truth is that you just can’t expect anything to last forever.

New Software

New software is supposed to make your technology work better than it did before, but it doesn’t always work that way. For starters, if you have an older machine, then it might not be able to handle the latest software. Even if you have the latest tech, though, you might still experience problems. When Apple releases a new macOS, there are always teething issues that cause problems; this article examines some of the problems with macOS Mojave, for instance, and helpfully offers some solutions. In most cases, when you install new software, you’ll have to wait until the problems have been solved before it’ll work exactly as it should.

Pushing Its Capabilities

There’s also the chance that some people expect too much from their machines. If you’re trying to play a game, download a movie, and have one hundred tabs open, you can’t have too many complaints if it begins to run slowly. It’s a good idea to take a look at what your laptop or computer is capable of, and then avoid pushing it to its limit. If you’re not happy with what your current machine can do, then you’ll need to upgrade!

You’ve Been Cybercrimed

Of course, sometimes the reason your computer isn’t working as well as it should be will be a little more chilly. You may have been the victim of a cybercrime. This type of crime has been steadily on the rise in recent years, and it’s getting ever more sophisticated. If something seems off, take it in to have it checked over by a computer expert.

All Those Memories

Finally, how’s the hard drive? If it’s filled to the brim with photos, videos, and so on, your computer will have no choice but to work more slowly than usual.

Tech has done a lot for making the world better, bit by bit. People carry around smartphones in their pockets, allowing them to connect to anyone else in the world wherever they are. Natural disasters and humanitarian crises are made easier to cope with via technology, and more and more people are getting into the tech development field simply because it’s so interesting, and there’s so much more to discover!

And one of the biggest sectors technology can help you out in is the travel industry. If you’re someone who likes to travel a lot, then you’re someone who needs to start packing your suitcase with new and improved tech pieces to help you on your journey. And here’s a few of the best suggestions you should take notice of for your next trip away.

There’s always something exciting about being able to snap an amazing or creative shot of a foreign city, but that’s not the only kind of travel technology there is out there!

A Drone

You want the best shot of the mountains you can’t reach on foot, don’t you? Well with a drone, you can snap as many pictures of the tops of trees and the cityscape without even needing to scale a building! You’ll get hundreds of professional pictures to sort through and edit when you’re home again; it’s the best way to build up your travel portfolio.

If you don’t own a drone, and have no idea where you could get one, check out OmniView Tech for cheap prices and a wide range. Take a drone with you next time you go away and see how the world opens up for you to view!

A Powerbank

We all worry about how long our phone battery is going to last, so you need to make sure you’ve got something like a powerbank to take with you. You never want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere whilst your phone (the only link you have to the rest of the world!) is on 1%!

Don’t let yourself be caught off guard, and make sure you’re beating the battery at its own game. Buy yourself two power banks when you next go shopping; one for home use, and one to keep charged up and already packed in your typical carry-on.

Some Mobile WIFI

You never want to have to pay data roaming charges, and when you’ve got an internet dongle or a mobile wifi router along with you, you’re not going to have to. Although be careful about the deal you go in for, as wifi on dongles are capped at a certain MB amount, and some routers still require you to pay a data charge (but only once, which is great if you’ve got two or more people using the same router!).

Taking tech on holiday can really start to weigh your suitcase down, so make sure you’re only ever taking the best. You never know when you’re going to need something useful when abroad!

If there is one thing that businesses around the globe are noticing, it’s the effects of global warming. Global warming doesn’t just have an affect on the planet, it has a targeted affect on the individuals living on it, including businesses. Business owners are finally stepping up and making decisions about their company that allow them to do everything in their power to solve the problems that arise from global warming. The biggest thing that any company can do is invest in technology that can make their business more sustainable.

Some of these include things like cloud storage, which can make telecommuting easy as well as reduce the need for huge energy-sucking server rooms in businesses. Others include oil water separator technologies for farming and water companies. Implementing the right initiatives for your business means researching said initiatives first, and some of these you can find below:

Rainwater Tanks

Your business will need clean water to be able to function; you have a duty to your staff and to yourself, but the water supply isn’t cheap. The energy that water companies use comes from fossil fuels, but as a business you could choose to invest in rainwater tanks, instead. This can harvest the rainwater and you can then have the tanks plumbed directly into your business, allowing the natural rainwater to assist in flushing and hand-washing practices.

Solar & Wind Power

Many farms and agricultural businesses have been paid to have a large windmill on their land, so why not invest a little and have a wind farm power your business? The natural energy that is created through wind and solar power can help to keep your business running, and as they are clean and renewable sources of energy, you are giving back to the planet.

Remote Working

Okay, so not a technology in itself, but the communication that is now enhanced by technology allows people to work from home, reduce their commute and be kinder to the ecosystem. Virtual meeting software now allows people to video chat from anywhere, reducing the need for people to jet around the globe for a meeting or two. Limiting air travel in your business is going to help it to go a long way to being greener.

Lighting

You may not know this, but your lighting in your office can actually total up to 20% of the energy consumption of your company. So many companies leave lights on through the night and this is only going to be bad for your budget as well as the planet. Start switching off what you aren’t using; there’s no need for the lights to be on at any level if no one is there to use them. Switch to LED bulbs, too, so that you can use lights that are more efficient.

Your business can be part of the solution and not the problem, you just have to step into 2018 and join everyone else who is turning to more ethical solutions for their company.

For any business, the efficiency that you work at can make the difference in how well your business runs. If you can’t meet demand or your processes are slow, then it can impact your bottom line, as well as repeat custom. In the day and age that we live in, a lot of the tech that you use for your business is going to be what makes the impact; if it isn’t up to scratch, then it needs to be dealt with.

Many small businesses are looking to go paperless, which does have many benefits. Paper, printers, copiers, and ink can all cost quite a lot of money, especially if people are using them daily, and it can improve the footprint of your business on the environment. However, if you haven’t got your computer system up and running as it should, and you don’t check it regularly, then having all of your business information and data on a computer system, rather than a traditional filing cabinet, can be a factor in what is slowing processes down.

The tech that you use and the data that you store is all part and parcel of being able to have a productive small business that can work efficiently.

Which is where the cloud could come in for your business. The cloud can be self-managed by apps that provide the services, so you can quite easily eliminate, or just reduce the need, for in-house IT staff to manage your technology. You could also look at cloud storage migration so that you can transfer any file or any number of users from one cloud to another easily, safely, and quickly. So it can be something that can help your business to stay efficient, and help your employees to work productively. For small business owners that want to be able to compete with their competitors and run things well, you need to be looking into making use of the cloud.

Moving data, information, and certain processes off your work computer systems can help things to improve.

But you can still look at the computers themselves. There are many programs on computers that may have been there since the computer was installed. In fact, some of these programs will run background processes as you use your computer, even if you aren’t using them. This can be something that slows the processes down, as well as the information that you store. Have a trawl through the list of installed software on your computers. Then simply uninstall those that you do not need in an effort to speed things up.

A crucial part of a business, especially one that has data and information all stored online, is keeping it all safe. The antivirus and antispyware programs that you use on your systems need to be checked regularly. Not only can a virus or spyware cause damage to your business, but it will be something that slows down your computers too. Always run antivirus software and keep it up to date, to help your business, and help your bottom line.

If you run a technology business, then you will probably already be well aware that there are many kinds of problems and worries which can crop up which other kinds of businesses never really have to deal with. Knowing this does not in itself make it easier, of course, and you will find that you probably have to try and look into the many different methods you can use to do so if you are going to succeed in your business in the future. The truth is that it is always worth looking at what kinds of problems there are likely to be, so that you can hopefully work towards building a business which is more capable of dealing with them and less likely to fall apart. That’s where this article comes in: here, we are going to discuss the challenges and concerns likely to face a tech business, and discuss what you might be able to do about it in the future.

Staying Relevant

Because of the fast-paced nature of the technology industry, you might find that you are sometimes a little worried about whether or not your own company will actually be able to keep up. This is a real concern, and not something to be dismissed, for if you pretend that it is not then it will only mean that you are much less likely to get the kind of success you are looking for. As a technology company, you need to make sure that you are staying as relevant as possible, in whatever way you can manage to do that, and whatever that might mean for you. As long as you can do that, you will be in a position to always hopefully keep selling land to make sure that you are staying relevant not just as a business, but as a brand identity. Therefore, you also need to make sure that you are staying relevant in terms of how people see you. That in itself is something that you need to focus on if your business is to carry on in the way you would hope.

Branding As A Tech Company

You arguably want to be seen as an innovator, and that is something that depends on how people see you. Or it might be that you want to run the kind of tech business which is not so much an innovator, but much more of providing a service that people need every day. These are the two common routes to go when you are trying to brand a tech company, and unless you happen to think of another which is more powerful, you’ll find you fall into one of these two categories pretty much succinctly. The upside of that pigeonholing is that the way has already been set for you in terms of how to brand and market that business, so all you need to do is to look at what has gone before and follow the same kind of styling. Of course, you will want to try and stand out and be unique, but this should give you a general sense of what you should do in order to appear as people expect you to appear. Then you know that your marketing is going to be built on a much more solid and a firmer base.

The Marketing Process

All companies need to market themselves, but technology companies in particular have to approach this in  way which you might not expect at first. Marketing your technology company means you need to focus on a few key areas which you might not expect, such as the technicalities of a product or its usefulness in a specific setting. In short, marketing is often much more niche focused here than in other kinds of business, and that is something to accept as early on as you can if you are going to make the most of your own marketing efforts. You also need to make sure that the products you are talking about can actually stand up the many rigorous tests that people are likely to put them through, and that in itself is always going to be one of your major concerns too.

Developing Products

Your products need to stand out, to be different and yet recognisable, and to provide some kind of a solution which can at least seem necessary, or on the other end of the scale is entirely luxurious. In any case, you need to make it look like you can’t live without it, and a big part of achieving that is making sure that, in the most basic and the most complex ways, it works. For a tech company, that means constant and relentless adapting and evolving with the product, which is something which you can do only if you know where you intend to go. You will also at times need to think about changing up the tech that you use to create your products, as in so doing you keep your own up to date much more effectively. For instance, you might be using FGETs instead of an older version (find out more about graphene FETs here), and that could make all the difference to your finished product. You need to think about all this if you are to develop products which stand the test of time and actually sell well and keep the business alive.

Competition

As a technology business, finding a competitive edge might be a little more complex or difficult than it is for many kinds of companies, and this is something that you need to spend considerable time on getting right as well. You need to make sure that you know what it is that your business does which no other business does quite as well. That could be the solution of a problem you have discovered, the way in which you create a product, or even just the nature of your customer service. In any case, make sure that you don’t’ forget this essential tool for surviving the marketplace. It’s valuable.