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XFER Blog

XFER Blog

XFER has been serving the Livonia area since 1994, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support, and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Like IT or Not, You Need to Keep Up

Like IT or Not, You Need to Keep Up

You have to establish your organization as a contender. To do so, you’re going to need to use at least the caliber of tools that your competition is using. According to the 2020 State of IT report that Spiceworks has released, the majority of businesses with fewer than 100 employees have plans to adopt new technology solutions.

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Tip of the Week: Best Patch Management Practices

Tip of the Week: Best Patch Management Practices

Patches are a critically important aspect of your technology. As a result, you need to be sure that yours are managed properly. We have three tips to share so you can optimize your patch management processes.

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How You Should Judge Potential Password Management Programs

How You Should Judge Potential Password Management Programs

Passwords are hard to remember - there’s no denying that. However, there is also no denying how important it is to use different ones for each account, all sufficiently complex, and all the rest. The point is, a lot of people use bad password practices because (to be frank) good password practices are too intimidating. There has to be some kind of acceptable middle ground… right?

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Tip of the Week: How to Keep Your POS from Being a PITA

Tip of the Week: How to Keep Your POS from Being a PITA

If your business is in retail, you’re going to need a Point-of-Sale (also known as a POS) system. This is a common device in businesses that directly sell to their clients and customers, as it can do a lot to assist these businesses as they manage their processes. As you seek out a POS system for your business, you’ll likely be looking for (and avoiding) certain features.

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Tip of the Week: Simple Windows 10 Tips

Tip of the Week: Simple Windows 10 Tips

Windows 10 is the benchmark in PC operating systems at this juncture. It offers users all types of great options from previous versions of Windows, while integrating some of today's most dynamic technology to provide users with the very best in organization and ease-of-use. Today we will talk about five very simple tips that will get you started getting the full function of Windows 10.

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Efficiency Is More Likely to Produce Business Success

Efficiency Is More Likely to Produce Business Success

Business can be tricky, especially if you’re good at it. It’s important to know when to be comfortable with your position without starting to feel complacent. If you fall into this trap, you’ll be running the risk of hindering your organization’s growth, potentially blocking any future successes.

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Small and Medium-Sized Businesses are Using Enterprise Technology

Small and Medium-Sized Businesses are Using Enterprise Technology

Compared to an enterprise corporation, a small-to-medium-sized business is going to have far fewer resources, especially in terms of its IT. Having said this, an SMB isn’t necessarily without a few quality options. Let’s review the needs that any business needs to have filled, and how they can do so with the right solutions.

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Have a Strategy for Your Work Email

Have a Strategy for Your Work Email

Email is generally considered to be one of the more effective ways of communication in the business world. An organization that can use email adeptly is one that saves time and money. Today, we’ll be discussing how you can get the most out of your email solution through the use of best practices and other tips.

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Cybercrime and What You Need to Do to Protect Yourself

Cybercrime and What You Need to Do to Protect Yourself

Cybercriminals have been altering and ramping up efforts to steal data for much of the past decade. Once thought to just be a nuisance, now it has become evident that the cost of doing business now includes comprehensive network security strategies, designed to keep threats from affecting your business’ ability to create revenue. Let’s take a look at a working cybersecurity strategy.

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Use These Best Practices to Create Secure Passwords

Use These Best Practices to Create Secure Passwords

It’s one thing to implement password security for your business, but another entirely to convince your users that it’s for the best in regards to network security, rather than implementing it as an annoyance to them. Your organization should make using new passwords and best practices as easy as possible to expedite the security process.

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Tip of the Week: Do Yourself a Favor, Document Your Processes

Tip of the Week: Do Yourself a Favor, Document Your Processes

The average business has a lot of internal processes, and these processes are typically pretty concrete: to accomplish this task, follow steps A, B, and C, in that order. However, due to the sheer volume of processes like these, it helps to have these processes documented for the benefit of your future employees... and, if we’re being honest, your future self. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over the proper process for documenting a task.

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Disaster Training: What to Do

Disaster Training: What to Do

You never know when your organization might fall prey to a disaster, whether it’s something natural that you can’t predict or a user error from even the most vigilant employee. We’ll walk you through what some of the most common office disasters are and how you can make sure your organization survives them with ease.

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Google Search Practices That Have Purpose

Google Search Practices That Have Purpose

You could say that Google is an extremely popular website, but even that is an understatement. It’s the most visited website in the world, with 3.5 billion search queries being processed every day, and over 1.2 trillion searches a year. With so many people using Google, it’s no wonder that it’s such an advertising conglomerate, but the fact remains that this can come at the user’s detriment more often than not.

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3 Ways Digital Signage Pays Off

3 Ways Digital Signage Pays Off

With so many new devices and strategies to use in the workplace, it should come as no surprise that even your office’s signage can receive a major facelift from IT. Digital signage in itself offers the chance for a business to use displays in innovative ways. Here are a few reasons why you should consider it for your office.

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You’ll Be Glad You Protected Your Google Account

You’ll Be Glad You Protected Your Google Account

Computer users today more than likely have a Google account, either for business or personal use. Not only is it accessible and convenient, it offers a versatile assortment of features. Regardless, no amount of accessibility, convenience, or versatility are worth your security. However, many users put precisely that, their security, at risk… often without even realizing it, or why this is such a big deal.

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Cybersecurity In 2018, What You Need to Know

Cybersecurity In 2018, What You Need to Know

2017 wasn’t so long ago, but one year is a long time in terms of cybersecurity developments. Anytime the Internet is involved, it’s important to remember that threats have access to the collective minds of every hacker on the planet, meaning that developments can happen rapidly and without much warning. We’ll take a look at how cybersecurity has changed since 2017, including some notable information about how organizations are protecting themselves today.

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Know Your Tech: A/B Testing

Know Your Tech: A/B Testing

A key component to effectively attracting your audience is to better understand their preferences. Even the most seemingly insignificant change, like changing the color of the buttons on your website, can have a major impact on how effective your materials are. Fortunately, through a process called A/B testing, observing the impact of these changes is somewhat straightforward.

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Tip of the Week: Why You Shouldn’t Just Kill Power to Windows

Tip of the Week: Why You Shouldn’t Just Kill Power to Windows

There’s a big difference between turning off any other appliance, like a stereo or a television, and turning off a computer. A computer takes much more time to shut down than your average device, but why is this the case? Is there a way to speed up this process? This tip will explain these processes and provide some ideas for how you can make this process much faster.

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Tip of the Week: Excel Features for the Power User

Tip of the Week: Excel Features for the Power User

As useful as a spreadsheet can be to convey information, they can be a little drab and disengaging if the full capabilities of Microsoft Excel aren’t understood and leveraged. For today’s tip, we’ll go over a few little-known and underutilized features that can help you create spreadsheets with both more style, and more utility.

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How to Be Selective when Picking a Backup Solution

How to Be Selective when Picking a Backup Solution

You literally never know when your data may be lost. It may be frightening to consider, but there are so many factors that could lead to you losing your data, ranging from an act of nature to user error. To counter this, you need to make sure your backup solution meets certain requirements. Today, we’ll review those requirements.

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