XFER Blog

Last week, two representatives from XFER traveled to Orlando, Florida, to attend IT Nation Connect 2024, one of the year's most important IT channel conferences. 

On November 8, the First Step - You Are The Light Gala was held at Laurel Manor, raising funds for a very worthy but heartbreaking purpose: to support and raise awareness of survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

We’re still getting more information on this, but at the time of writing this, every American can assume that their social security number has been stolen. Let’s share what we know so far.

The recent CrowdStrike outage that disrupted many Microsoft-run systems has made headlines, even if it didn’t affect you directly. With so many organizations relying on Windows, this incident caused an unprecedented number of computer crashes, impacting over 8.5 million systems worldwide. The outage didn’t just cost businesses billions in lost revenue—it also led to the cancellation of 3,000 flights, throwing travel plans into chaos. As the largest outage in history, it served as a stark reminder that the technology we depend on daily isn’t foolproof. Today, we’ll explore key takeaways from the CrowdStrike outage and how businesses can better prepare for such events.

Everyone should soon have access to a very handy feature in Google Sheets that helps close the gap between Sheets and its rival software, Microsoft Excel.

This feature? Simple table conversions, complete with advanced organization features.

SMBs need to be sensitive to their profit margins, as their ability to offer valuable services and products is directly tied to how many resources they have at their disposal. Therefore, you need to do all you can to save money where it counts—including your IT budget. It makes the most sense to take care of your existing IT infrastructure so you don't have to throw away resources needlessly.

The big game was this past Sunday, and if you are like millions of other people, you tuned in to see the spectacle of the game, the halftime show, and Taylor Swift. Behind the scenes, the National Football League has been utilizing emerging technologies to help them solve some of their biggest problems. Let’s go into three ways the NFL is using technology to improve their product.

Whether we want to admit it or not, the future can be scary, and even the most powerful technology out there is not enough to keep today’s data preserved while it’s in storage. Decades from now, or perhaps even a century, are you confident that your data will be available and ready to use? We’re here today to discuss why you shouldn’t be extremely confident in your hard drives.

The one thing about data backup is that it seems like it is pretty simple: You have data, you copy it and store it should something happen to your original. Sure, that’s the basic makeup of a data backup, but if you want a backup you can really rely on, you need it to be faultless. Enter Backup and Disaster Recovery. 

As your business grows and shifts, managing your technology can become increasingly complicated. It can get to the point where properly taking care of your IT and supporting your users is a full time job. If you are just calling a computer person to come and fix problems when you bump into them, then you might have potential consequences to deal with later that could cost your organization a lot of time and money.

In recent months, publicly-accessible AI tools have ignited interest in using artificial intelligence amongst businesses, and for good reason. While these tools are very, very limited in what they can do—which we will discuss here for sure—they still show enormous potential.

However, this potential introduces a few major questions to the conversation. Let’s examine some of them.

Productivity suites are a dime a dozen, with Microsoft Office being perhaps the most well-known. However, there are plenty of other options out there, such as Google Workspace. How does Google Workspace hold up as a solution for productivity compared to its competition? Let’s take a look!

Remote work has been a popular topic for a few years, but over the past year, with so many people forced into working from home, a lot has been written about it. Today, we wanted to briefly talk about some of the technology that is suggested for the remote business, and what we can do to help you support remote workers. 

Businesses of all sizes rely on data to operate, which means that this data needs to be collected somehow. Let’s consider how the concept of data automation has assisted these businesses to successfully accomplish more.

Google Chrome is adding a cool feature over the next week or so (it may already have been released for you). The next feature is sure to make a big difference for some and will be non-descript for others. Let’s unpack colorful tabs in Google Chrome.

Generally speaking, when people think about security, they only think about it in terms of internet protection.
When it comes to securing your business, there is a much broader horizon to view. While internet security is critical to protecting your network and data, that only scratches the surface of what real security is all about.
Real security encompasses holistic protection of your organization from what happens on your network to who enters your building, who’s listening to your conversations to the proper training of your entire staff. 

Certain business dynamics are custom-made for cloud-based solutions. If you want to spend less time managing infrastructure and more time focusing on your core business objectives, it’s time to consider the cloud.
Step back and take a fresh look at the forces affecting your business. Check out the list below to see if any of these common dynamics might be driving you to the cloud:

If you’re like every other small business out there, you know that the more employees you hire, the more technology that you have to procure. However, when you have more end-users, you provide more avenues for threats to slip into your network infrastructure unnoticed. When all it takes is one simple mistake from a single end-user, how can you minimize the chances of falling victim to an untimely hacking attack?

The 1990s were dominated by all sorts of great technology: VHS, floppy disks, and grossly oversized computer hardware. Learning new technology shortcuts was once all the rage, but when looked at now, these tech tips are rendered obsolete. However, that doesn’t stop them from hitting us right in the nostalgia. Here are some of our favorite tech tips from the 1990s.

If you have no strategy in place for a) determining if you need a cloud-based phone system and b) how you will migrate towards one if you do, you should prepare your company for a long and pricy road to failure.

Your phone system is a critical component to the success of your business and the productivity of your employees, but taking advantage of its capabilities requires incorporating your phone system platform into your overall IT strategy.