Ferrum Technology Services Blog

Collaboration fuels business more than ever before. Now there are software titles dedicated to promote the highest degrees of collaboration possible, while also giving users the access to the tools they need to stay productive. Today, we will look at collaboration apps to give you an idea whether or not they are right for your business.

Navigating some websites can be a pain, but thankfully, there is a handy-dandy tool that just about all of them utilize to make it easier for users. We’re talking, of course, about the navigation bar. We’ll discuss what the navigation bar is, what it does, and why it’s so helpful for a website or application’s end user.

Here’s an interesting fact: any business that makes money can be successful. It doesn’t matter if you catch and sell fish, offer financial advice, or cut people’s grass, if you make more than you spend, your business will likely stay open as long as demand for your product or service continues. For most businesses, investing in technology can bring with it greater profitability.

As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to keep an eye on how your staff communicates. Email and telephone have long been staples in this regard, and these solutions come packed with features like file storage and instant messaging. With more organizations taking their businesses on the go, these businesses are trying to take advantage of applications with the ability to integrate with their real-time messaging apps. Enter: Slack and Microsoft Teams, two solutions that hope to change the way business communications work.

Businesses of all types have looked to the cloud as a way to receive the goods and services they could use to improve their ability to create revenue, while not having to lay out huge chunks of capital in which to get the dynamic computing infrastructure. Today, developers are creating useful cloud-based applications that not only provide growing businesses the resources they need, they increasingly give workers flexibility, through their inherent accessibility. Today, we will take a look at five cloud-based applications that can really benefit a small business.

The word “wizard” may not seem to have much to do with computing, besides calling someone a “computer wiz.” However, there is a particular type of program that serves a very similar purpose, referred to as a wizard as well. We’ll examine it in today’s blog.

At first glance, a customer relationship management (CRM) solution and an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution might seem quite similar. They are both ways to help you get the most out of what you have using technology solutions, but they have specific uses in a business environment.

Your signature has a lot of power, particularly in the business world. Because of this, it’s curious to see how so many companies are moving over to the more digital alternative. In order to fully take advantage of digital signatures for your organization, you need comprehensive security measures that can reinforce the authenticity of your signatures.

As a business owner, you should know that you shouldn’t abuse the software licenses that your business relies on to function, or use pirated software to fulfill that need. While there are many people do such things, the response from software companies in an attempt to stop such activities has created a system that can award those who exploit it.

What kind of software does your business use to keep operations moving forward? Depending on what industry you are in, you might find it increasingly painstaking to procure and manage the software titles your organization uses, particularly if yours is a small business that has limited capital to invest in its software. Nowadays, however, the acquisition of software doesn’t have to be troublesome, as software as a service (SaaS) is providing organizations with limited resources access to software it normally could not afford.

Google’s Android line of smart devices have made their presence well-known in the business world. Google now offers a zero-touch enterprise solution for its Pixel-line mobile devices. The primary reason for this is that mobile devices are somewhat time-consuming to set up, especially on the business level. You can save time by pre-configuring these devices for your business to use using Pixel’s zero-touch solution.

What are some of the critical business applications that your organization depends on in order to function? Perhaps it’s something as simple as an email solution, or your productivity suite. If either of these stopped working properly, would you be able to sustain operations? What if your software licenses ran out and you lost access to them? These are some of the many pains of traditional software acquisition, and a new method of this can help you make significant headway in managing your organization’s technology.

Users can expect a change to how Google delivers results going forward, as the search engine has killed off its ‘Instant’ feature. This feature--introduced in 2010--influenced how results were displayed, and when.

Every software your company uses comes with a license, even freeware like Google Chrome and Firefox. Often times, you’ll see the license during the installation process when you’re asked to opt into the terms and conditions. We know how easy it is to blow through the pages of legal mumbo jumbo, yet, at the very least you should have a grasp of the details pertaining to the license.

The popularity of security software has required malware distributors to be clever with their delivery methods. This is why rogue security software exists, and why you need to be absolutely certain that your network doesn’t have these fraudulent programs installed.

As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to account for each and every one of your organization’s software solutions, but do you know the exact value that your business is getting from them? This can be challenging when managing software solutions locally on each of your workstations, but the cloud makes this astronomically easier.

Users of Android mobile devices have plenty of great assets at their disposal, and the new functionality of Google Translate offers yet another reason to use the versatile mobile OS. Thanks to the Tap to Translate feature, Android users have a new way to translate text, and all it takes is the press of a button.

Every piece of software released by Microsoft has an expiration date. Known as the End of Life event, this is when Microsoft ceases to support the software. It’s imperative that you stay on top of EOL dates for the sake of your company’s operations and data security. Take for example the dozens of software titles that expired just this past April.

Artificial intelligence is still a long way off, but this doesn’t stop people from trying to make major advancements in how AI thinks. Take, for example, a Japanese novella (a short novel) co-written by AI that almost won the Hoshi Shinichi Award literary prize. That’s the key word here, though: almost. It seems that AI still has quite a bit of progress to make before it can effectively replicate human creativity.

Windows 10 offers plenty of ways you can customize how your mouse pointer looks and functions, which can make navigating your PC much easier. Here’s how to do it!