Ferrum Technology Services Blog

How much does your business currently rely on the cloud? There are loads of ways to use it, but the best way is to find what works for your business, then double down on it according to your company’s specific needs. We’re looking at how the type of cloud can impact the way your business uses this flexible asset.

Google Chrome is everywhere. It’s one of the most popular web browsers for a reason, but most people don’t take full advantage of everything it can do. That means you’re probably missing out on some cool features that could save you time and make your life a whole lot easier.

Today, we’re diving into some Chrome tips you might not know about, plus a few hidden gems that can help you get even more out of your browsing experience, whether you’re using it for work or just everyday tasks.

We all know that person with an ancient laptop, a stubborn printer, or that phone they refuse to part with. At some point, however, that beloved device stops being the sidekick you need it to be and starts feeling more like dead weight. If your tech is making life harder instead of easier, it might be time for an upgrade. Here’s how to know when to let go.

Business is all about disaster mitigation and damage control. You never know exactly when something bad is going to happen, but you have to be ready for it when it does. Today, we want to discuss a couple ways that smart technology can help you in specific situations where your business might otherwise falter.

Long story short: it depends.

As unhelpful as that answer may seem on the surface, it really is the truth. There are just so many variables that different businesses will exhibit that ultimately impact how their budgets should be shaped. For instance, both a small mom-and-pop shop and a massive corporation need cybersecurity, but the scale of their respective investments will vastly differ.

Let’s go over how to budget appropriately for your cybersecurity protections and concerns. 

IT should be making your business work smarter, not harder. That’s what we want to discuss today: how IT impacts your business priorities, such as productivity, cybersecurity, and accessibility. Are you making the best choices possible, or are the options you’re selecting hindering your company’s operations?

It’s always good to know what kind of technological assets your business has at any given time, but some business owners don’t keep a detailed inventory. If you don’t know what you have, how will you know what you need? Let’s discuss some of the ways you can manage your IT inventory or make your current practices more effective.

Last month, we wrote about how Windows is not the only operating system out there and that new users may be coming to the OS for the first time. We want to continue this discussion by sharing how to navigate the many features of Windows 11, including one of the more useful ones: the Start menu. You’ll find the other articles in this series by checking the “Learning Windows” tag here on our blog.

Technology is deeply embedded in nearly every aspect of modern life. As society has become increasingly tech-driven, businesses have found ways to set themselves apart by meeting the growing demand for innovation. While technological dominance has been a recurring theme throughout the information age, today’s leading tech companies wield more power and influence than ever before.

When a business uses the cloud for any reason, its cloud solutions and resources must be sufficiently reliable. Let’s examine what it is that makes the cloud reliable, and how to ensure you accomplish this essential baseline.

Your business needs to consider business continuity if it wants to outlast the competition, and to do so, you need a data backup plan. Let’s look at some steps you can take today to protect your small business from potentially disastrous situations.

Even with ransomware making headlines last year, 2024 saw one of the most interesting trends yet: decreased payments. Last year alone, ransomware payments decreased by hundreds of millions of dollars, even with large-scale attacks and a massive $75 million payment by one victim. Progress? Well, maybe.

Multitasking might commonly be seen as a super skill that all employees and business professionals should master, but is it really all it’s cracked up to be? The truth of the matter is that multitasking doesn’t work, even if it looks like it does. In fact, all it succeeds in doing is making you work slower while increasing your stress and decreasing productivity.

While social media has given us the capability to communicate beyond anything we’ve seen since the popularization of the Internet itself, this isn’t all a good thing. These platforms have made it easier for people to scam others, after all, making it necessary for everyone to take their personal cybersecurity and that of their company even more seriously.

Let’s talk about how these scams commonly work.

Security is one of the more worrisome parts of running a business, and it doesn’t matter what size your organization is either. Whether you’re a small startup or a large enterprise, security is still going to be paramount. But it doesn’t have to be confusing; in fact, we have three simple strategies you can start implementing today to help you move your security infrastructure in the right direction.

Windows PowerToys is a collection of handy utilities that can offer a lot of value to those with some use for them. We wanted to briefly run through some of the most business-friendly options you might want to implement into your operations.

Windows might be the standard for business, but that’s because it was the original standard. These days, children grow up with Chromebooks in schools while using Mac and Apple products for their personal devices. It might not be safe any longer to assume that today’s workers know what they’re doing with the Windows operating system, especially as a younger generation grows up and enters the workforce.

Keyboard shortcuts are an underrated way to be more productive throughout your workday. Today, we want to highlight some excellent shortcuts that will help you make the most out of everyone’s favorite video platform, YouTube.

Experiencing downtime can severely harm your business. If you're not actively monitoring your network to minimize it, you're putting your operations at risk. Downtime refers to any period when your organization isn't functioning as intended, and it's crucial to manage it diligently. Failing to do so can lead to several challenging issues. 

Basically, you run into three different problems. They are:

Artificial intelligence—AI—is rapidly appearing in more and more contexts, but one most people have almost certainly seen by now is at the top of Google’s search engine results. For those who would rather not see these generated results—which have been found to be occasionally contradictory or outright wrong, depending on the source the AI has drawn from—there are actually a few ways to accomplish this.