Millions of people are now regularly using Facebook, My Space, Linked In and Twitter. Much of the time spent is during work hours and is of no value to these people’s employers. Are all social networking sites a waste of time for your business?

The answer is that it depends. If your transactional staff are spending time on these sites instead of doing their jobs, then it’s a problem, however it’s not only your employees doing it, and any place that there are millions of people, you have to also look at them as potential Read the rest of this entry »

There was a lot of media attention paid to the Conficker virus.

The virus that was supposed to go active on April 1st. It actually stayed dormant until April 4th, and then became active, however it has not done much other than pushing Spam and fake anti-virus software. This may change, and we are watching developments carefully.

There are two things to keep in mind with this story. First, the virus in question utilizes a flaw in Microsoft Windows that Microsoft had released a patch for in Read the rest of this entry »

Instead of waiting to be stimulated by Washington, I say “Stimulate Yourself”!

This might be Vegas, but I’m talking business.  In this economic downturn companies need to look at ways to improve efficiency, reduce costs and find ancillary income streams.  The items I’ll discuss here are just a couple of the multitudes of ideas that can help protect your bottom line and keep your business healthy.

Improving efficiency and reducing costs often go hand in hand.  Here are a couple of suggestions to think about:

1.   Payroll – I’m not talking about saving a few bucks by switcing to a less expensive serivce, I’m talking about the cost of your employees versus the benefit.  What percentage of your payroll is contributing to your bottom line?  Is staff spending hours per day on MySpace, Facebook, Internet chat or shopping?  The National average is just under two hours per day per employee!  So 25% of some employee’s time is worth less Read the rest of this entry »

Now more than ever, IT plays an increasingly important role in business. In the past, IT was used primarily as an enabler and efficiency engine. Today, IT permeates every critical business process—and business success depends on it. Most organizations can’t fulfill a sales order, hire an employee or develop new products without the assistance of technology. These are the age-old mainstays of business, and they are now reliant Read the rest of this entry »

1. I think I have a virus! What should I do?
Some symptoms of virus infection include unusual errors or weird pop-up messages, slow system performance, frequent program crashes, or applications that won’t open. If you experience any of these, run a virus scanner to determine if you do indeed have a virus. The program should either Read the rest of this entry »

Where does all the time go? Document management can be a real drain on your workday. You can easily spend 150 hours a year searching through file cabinets, 30 hours per month on copying, collating and stapling, and if you lose a document? It can take days of work to recreate it from scratch. There are ways to improve your efficiency, however, and there are steps you can take to Read the rest of this entry »

Email marketing provides a huge opportunity to instantly tell your consumers customers exactly what they need to know about your product or service in a small amount of time and space. In order to help you take advantage of all that email marketing can do for your business, we’ve compiled some helpful tips. Here’s how to help ensure your email is read and Read the rest of this entry »

Given just a few hours, uninvited guests can discover a wealth of your personal and private business data. Follow our insider security tips to help keep your desktop and notebooks PC’s snoop-proof.

Pick a password
The latest desktops and notebooks will come with Read the rest of this entry »

Most business owners don’t know that in Nevada on October 1, 2008, NRS 597.970 goes into effect.

1. A business in this State shall not transfer any personal information of a customer through an electronic transmission other than a facsimile to a person outside of the secure system of the business unless the business uses encryption to ensure the security of Read the rest of this entry »