Ferrum Technology Services Blog

Emerging technologies can help businesses attain their goals, but to do so, they need to understand how and when to leverage them. One of the fastest-growing technologies being used today is artificial intelligence. AI isn’t always what you may think it is, however. Many of today’s most useful tools for business are actually powered by something called machine learning. In this month’s newsletter, we will unpack machine learning and how it works inside a business.

One of the most stressful situations one can imagine these days is losing a smartphone—especially because it is likely connected to your banking apps, social media, images, and so much more. We’ll walk you through some tips you can implement to locate your lost or stolen device.

If you’re in the know about cybersecurity and, specifically, mobile malware, you might have heard the name XLoader in the past. The malware has gone through considerable versions and variations, allowing it to steal information from users in more than seven countries, but the most recent is incredibly scary.

Google Drive comes with a pre-built feature allowing users to scan a picture or document, and save it as a PDF—at least for Android smartphones. The trick can be pulled off with just a couple of taps, making it easier than ever to import documents to your Drive. Here’s how it’s done.

Mobile devices are crucial to the productivity and success of modern businesses, but they bring with them countless opportunities for security risks and issues. To combat this, you need to be cognizant of these risks and manage the permissions of your applications. Let’s discuss how you can manage the permissions you grant applications on your Android smartphone.

Any devout user of Android devices knows that Google Chrome is probably going to be the default browser on their devices, but what if you wanted to, for whatever reason, use a different one? There is a way to change the browser used on your Android device, and it all starts with knowing which browsers are available for use.

There is such a heavy focus on malware that targets desktop PCs, laptops, and servers, but there are mobile malware types too, one of which is TangleBot, a pesky malware that hits the Android operating system. This particular threat is dangerous due to the increasing reliance on mobile technology in today’s workplace.

Want to get more out of your smartphone’s battery? There are plenty of ways to get more juice out of a charge, such as turning off Wi-Fi or other settings, but today’s tip will walk you through changing the screen resolution. This shouldn’t have a major effect on what you can do on your phone, but it can slightly reduce the amount of battery your phone uses while the screen is on.

Let’s face facts: there could easily be quite a bit on your mobile device that you don’t want someone to have access to. However, on the other side of the coin, you hardly want to appear rude and never let someone use your phone to place a call or look up some contact information… right? As it turns out, Android has a little-known feature called Android Guest Mode that many can use to share one’s device more securely.

Uh oh—your mobile device is missing.

If you ever find yourself in this situation, time is of the essence… particularly if you have reason to believe that your device was stolen. To help prevent things from getting messy, we’ve put together a checklist for you to run down in case you suddenly can’t find your smartphone or tablet.

It isn’t like anyone actively means to lose their smartphone, but stuff happens. After all, many of us have our device in-hand for most of our waking hours, so there’s plenty of opportunities for it to be left behind somewhere. Fortunately, there are ways that you can set up your smartphone to help track it should it be lost, whether it’s an Apple device or on the Android platform.

Android has been around in one of its many forms for over a decade, and looking back, the changes that have been made over time is remarkable. Let’s go through each version to review some of the adjustments and improvements that each new version has introduced.

While there’s been no “official” date set for the release of Android 11, there have been plenty of indications so far of its features in its ongoing beta tests. We decided to look forward into the near future to see how some of these features could help us to be productive.

It is an indisputable fact that the Google Play Store has a ridiculous number of applications for users to select from. It is also a fact that many of these applications should not be downloaded, and instead actively avoided. For this week’s tip, we’re giving a few examples of the kind of app you should steer clear of, and why.

Mobile devices haven’t been known to have a lot of faults when it comes to security, but when a really bad malware attack does happen, the best solution may be to wipe the device and start over from a factory reset. Currently, there is a malware targeting Android devices that is so resilient that it can even withstand a factory reset.

Smartphones have become an important part of our lives, whether it’s for personal or professional purposes. Downloading media to devices rather than computers was practically unheard of, but nowadays it’s commonplace. Now that we mention it… where exactly do those files wind up going on an Android device? This week’s tip is all about how to find your downloads on an Android device.

With technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence entering further into our daily lives, what was once science fiction is becoming fact - assisting our lives (which most would agree is better than threatening our lives). For this week’s tip, we’ll show you how to leverage machine learning in a very basic way: in the Android version of Gmail’s Smart Compose feature.

With the holiday season winding down, business needs to get done, which means that organizations will be expecting their employees to get back to work and make things happen as quickly as possible. Mobile devices make this prospect much easier, as work can be done on-the-go in a flexible manner. Here are some tips to get the most out of your mobile devices post-holiday season.

Using a mobile device to browse the Internet has its perks, but one of the biggest ones is that you have so many options for browsers. If you’re having trouble selecting one for your needs, it’s generally best to stick with ones that you’ve used in the past. Here are a couple of options you have for mobile browsing.

Mobile data is extremely important to the productivity and efficiency of modern businesses--especially when employees and administrators are out of the office. The major drawback of this is that it can be an expensive setup, as mobile data transfer can be pricey. We can help you get around this issue by minimizing the amount of data your Android device uses.