Category: Technology

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Technology

Tip of the Week: 4 Accessories Every Smartphone Needs

b2ap3_thumbnail_smartphone_accessories_400.jpg Smartphones are very convenient technologies, but with a couple of improvements to your device repertoire, you can drastically improve both your user experience and the value of your device. Here are four smartphone accessories that can enhance the way you use your mobile device.

Portable Battery Pack
Sometimes, no matter how much you charge your battery, you might find yourself falling short of the juice required to work while on the go. You aren’t always going to have access to an outlet, and even a quick charge may not be enough to get the job done. In instances like this, a portable battery pack is a huge help. There are battery packs available that are compatible with modern USB technology, so all you have to do is plug in your phone to charge your device. For starters, you can check out this one made by Anker.

A Long USB Cord
Your typical smartphone charging cable is generally only a few feet long, which means it’s easy to come up short when you need a charge. If you regularly find yourself needing the extra length, you can try out this huge USB cord by Anker. It makes a perfect partner for the portable battery pack we brought up. Plus, this cord is built out of some pretty hefty material, which means that you won’t have to worry about your pet chewing it, or severing it unexpectedly when moving a heavy piece of furniture around. With reinforced stress points, the cord can be bent and wrapped up for quite a bit, making it a long-lasting solution to your USB cord woes.

Bluetooth Headset
How often do you find yourself sick and tired of holding a phone to your face while trying to get work done? In cases like this (particularly long meetings with no end in sight), a Bluetooth headset for your smartphone can come in real handy. All you have to do is tether the device to your smartphone, pop it in your ear, and voila–you have a hands-free way of talking on the phone while getting to your work.

Other Bluetooth Technology
Basically, anything that uses Bluetooth technology is great for your smartphone, as it allows you to wirelessly tether devices to it. For example, you could use a wireless keyboard when you need to write a document or email. If you want to listen to music, you could hook up a pair of Bluetooth headphones so as not to bother others who might be in the vicinity.

What are some other great accessories that you can use for your mobile device while out and about? Be sure to let us know in the comments, and subscribe to our blog for more great tips and tricks.

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Technology

The Case for Hosting Your Phone Solution In-House

b2ap3_thumbnail_on_premise_phone_system_400.jpg Traditional communications solutions are all well and good, but they’re quickly growing antiquated and outdated with the inception of more dynamic solutions. Some organizations have found that cloud-hosted VoIP has advantages over an on-premise telephone solution. While there’s a certain degree of truth to this, an on-site system still presents value.

When you host your own VoIP solution, the biggest difference to consider is the fact that you’ll be managing your own hardware. An in-house system is stored in the server room or another dedicated part of your infrastructure. Alternatively, when you use cloud VoIP, the system is stored off-site, hosted and maintained by an outsourced provider.

Keep in mind that when we talk about on-site VoIP systems, we’re not referring to the traditional landline telephone system that many organizations still use. Rather, we’re talking about a virtual phone system that uses your Internet connection rather than a landline cable infrastructure to send and receive calls. Though VoIP is a service that can easily be outsourced to a third-party provider, it’s possible for you to host an in-house system on a dedicated server… assuming you have the staff to properly manage and maintain it.

Regardless, there are still some benefits to consider regarding on-site VoIP hosting rather than going through a cloud provider. Here are a couple of them.

  • Control: In comparison to a hosted solution, your business has greater control over an in-house phone system. You can easily add new users and phone numbers rather than going through support to do so. This also means that you’re in a greater position of responsibility, so it’s important that you have the staff on-site and ready to maintain your system, should you choose to go this route.
  • Use your existing infrastructure: Consider for a moment how much effort went into building your current infrastructure. You already have a network, servers, and other important hardware hooked up to it. What’s a little more in the form of your in-house VoIP system? If you wanted to add VoIP to a cloud infrastructure, you have to go through the hoops of configuration and setup, which is something that you may not have control over with a hosted solution.

If your organization is considering revamping its communications infrastructure, look no further than COMPANYNAME. We can help your business get the most return on investment from your phone solution. To learn more, reach out to us at PHONENUMBER.

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Technology

In Case of Emergency, Activate Facebook’s Safety Check

b2ap3_thumbnail_facebook_safety_check_400.jpg In 2014, Facebook launched Safety Check, a helpful tool allowing users to “check in” that they’re okay during a crisis event, like a natural disaster, mass shooting, etc. Recently, Facebook made a major change to Safety Check by allowing users affected by the crisis to activate the feature. This is yet another example of how social media is changing the way people find out about major events and react to them.

To give you an idea of the sizeable difference this change makes, consider the fact that in the first year of Safety Check (when it was exclusively controlled by Facebook), the feature was activated 39 times worldwide. Since the change was made in December of 2015, Safety Check was activated a total of 328 times over the following six months. That is a significant number of crisis situations that would have been overlooked if Facebook alone was at the helm.

Rest assured, Facebook is still involved in Safety Check’s activation process. Otherwise, jokesters and Internet trolls would surely abuse the tool and “cry wolf” every chance they get, which would effectively render the tool useless. To prevent this, Facebook has a two-step activation system.

  • Step 1: A user submits a crisis event to Facebook they deem to be worthy of Safety Check activation.
  • Step 2: Facebook checks on the validity of the event by analyzing the chatter over its social network, along with third party organizations.

If the crisis event makes it through rigors of this automated process, then Safety Check is activated and those affected can begin “checking in” that they’re okay.

Of course, the Internet being the Internet, there will always be those who make light of a crisis situation by “checking in” on Safety Check events that have nothing to do with them. However, this annoyance aside, society can only benefit from the public having a tool like Safety Check to quickly notify scores of friends and family of one’s status during a crisis.

Have you used Facebook’s Safety Check to notify your friends that you’re okay? If so, then share with us in the comments if you’ve found this tool to be useful or not.

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Technology

Tip of the Week: Every Mobile Device Policy Needs to Cover These 3 Areas

b2ap3_thumbnail_smb_mobile_400.jpg Smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other mobile technology are practically necessities in today’s modern workplace; especially if you want to keep productivity flowing at all times. However, implementing mobile devices into your workplace infrastructure is more complicated than it sounds, especially if you want to preserve security. Here are three topics to consider when implementing mobile devices in the workplace.

Data Security
One of the key concerns that any business using mobile devices needs to account for is security. When you add new devices to your business’s network, you’re adding endpoints that could potentially fall victim to hacking attacks. The more devices that are connected to a network, the more patches and updates that need to be installed in order to maintain security. Basically, adding new devices means more work, and more work can lead to cut corners, which inevitably leads to compromised devices.

A mobile device management solution is capable of securing all of your organization’s devices, be they smartphones or laptops. It’s the easiest way to manage access to mission-critical data, whitelist and blacklist apps, and remotely wipe devices that have been compromised.

Connectivity
When you’re taking mobile devices out of the office, you need to consider how your employees (and yourself) are going to connect to sensitive corporate data. While you could just connect to your cloud solution through a public Wi-Fi connection, this is discouraged, as public Wi-Fi can often be compromised. You never know who else could be on the network, watching your every move.

In instances like these, a virtual private network (VPN) is a valuable tool. With a VPN, you can access your network’s data over an encrypted connection, meaning that as long as you are connected to a wireless network, the data sent to and from your device will be secured so that any onlookers won’t be able to do anything with your data. The data sent to your device is encrypted and then decrypted upon arrival, so if any hackers try to steal it in transit, they’ll only get a jumbled batch of letters and numbers.

Cloud Access
Of course, you’ll need access to your organization’s data, especially when you’re out of the office and using several different devices. To do so, you need a cloud solution that allows your business to share and collaborate on files in real time, across multiple platforms. Most importantly, you want to ensure that your team can open crucial data that’s needed to keep operations moving forward, even when out of the office. A dynamic cloud solution–either public, private, or hybrid–is the key to solving this pain point. Depending on your business’s specific needs, you’ll want one that prioritizes the functionality and security your business requires.

For all of your business’s mobile device security needs, you can contact COMPANYNAME. We’ll work with you to ensure that your devices aren’t putting your business’s data at risk. To learn more, reach out to us at PHONENUMBER.

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Can an Algorithm Predict the Next Bestselling Novel?

b2ap3_thumbnail_big_data_bestseller_400.jpg It’s not always easy to identify what will be hip and trendy years from now, but big data is attempting to bridge this gap. In general, due to the unpredictability of human behavior, it can be difficult to spot cultural anomalies before they happen. Despite these challenges, algorithms are being applied to various practices in both the business world and elsewhere. One innovative way in which it’s being used is by attempting to predict the next bestselling novel.

Jodie Archer, author of an upcoming book called The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel, claims to have found an interesting way to use algorithms and big data to discover what’s hot in the literature department. This particular algorithm, called the “bestseller-ometer”, looks at what particular qualities make for the most successful fiction. As reported by The Atlantic, the algorithm can identify a bestseller more than 80 percent of the time.

This success is attributed to the algorithm’s ability to identify bestselling fiction from the New York Times bestseller list. Basically, this is one of the many attempts that computing systems have made toward predicting the behavior of the human brain, and it could change the way that publishing companies accept and publish manuscripts. After all, if a book doesn’t sell, why publish it?

The biggest question that this algorithm attempts to answer is: “Why do we all read the same book?” It’s compelling, to say the least. Everyone has different tastes in literature. The academic who carries a pocket thesaurus around in his suitcase might find an escape in a good science-fiction short story or another piece of genre fiction. On the other hand, a book that’s destroyed by critics might be surprisingly successful. Thus, readers find different traits to be more valuable than others.

Aided by English professor Matthew L. Jockers, Archer built the algorithm to find out what makes a reader so interested in a certain piece of literature. The Bestseller Code looks at the various processes and strategies used by the algorithm to identify the context and other important parts of popular fiction. The list is quite long, but it includes a plethora of tropes that are generally found in literature, including:

  • Authoritative voice
  • Colloquial (everyday) language
  • Action-oriented characters
  • Cohesion
  • Human closeness

One other major idea that needs to be taken into account is that of the “zeitgeist,” or time-sensitive concepts. Basically, what’s contemporary is what sells. This adds an element of the unknown and makes it difficult to predict what will be popular in the near future. There’s also the interesting notion of the human element, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to foresee how they will act in the future. In a way, it makes sense that a human should be picking the next bestseller, as the algorithm cannot empathize with characters or be moved by a good story. After all, a computer can analyze semantics as much as it wants, but it’s not the one reading the book. That’s the job of readers all over the globe.

While it’s possible that big data can make strides in the way we understand how humans think, it’s important to understand that humans are unpredictable by nature. Any attempts to predict the future based on statistics or metrics, while seemingly helpful, could mean nothing, as people often behave irrationally or beyond reason. While technology is a great way to bridge this gap, it’s still important to remember that people are people, not machines.

What are your thoughts on using big data to find new audiences and better understand your own market? Let us know in the comments.