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Focused IT Consulting Fosters Small Business Innovation

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THE SYSADMIN: WEARER OF MANY HATS A system administrator handles the core of your IT setup. They’re the ones who design and maintain how users, groups of users, computers, and groups of computers behave. This is true whether you’re looking at a specific user or computer, or across the entire network. Adding IT consultants to your company’s roster of reliable resources can ensure your network is optimized and secure.  In many small- to mid-sized businesses, the IT expert is expected to know everything about technology, even if it’s not necessarily computer...

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5 Ways to Spring Clean Your Website

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1. CHECK ALL YOUR LINKS Your website can have between a dozen and hundreds (or even thousands) of links. There are inbound links in your written content that link to other parts of your site, and outbound links that show customers where you sourced your information. If these links are not working properly, then potential customers can end up aggravated – and this tends to mean that they will not become your customers. While this step of the website spring cleaning process may be tedious, it’s incredibly important. Take a few hours out of your day to check that all links...

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10 Ways Artificial Intelligence is Already Impacting Your Life

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Despite Hollywood’s persistent attempts to convince us otherwise, our world is not overwhelmed by malevolent runaway machines and dangerous robots. Yet functional artificial intelligence is everywhere you look. Here are 10 ways in which AI is already impacting your life: 1. Social media monitoring. It would be impossible for humans to police the huge volume of user-posted videos and other content hosted by social media sites every single day, but AI is filling the gaps. From flagging and deleting copy-protected songs to shutting down depictions of violence, artificial intelligence is...

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5 Reasons Why You Should Care About Big Data

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IMPROVE YOUR SERVICES Big Data allows you to improve your products on a level that’s never been possible before. You can fine-tune your offer and make it perfect for your target customer. You can personalize and tweak until your ideal customers feel they’ve found a perfect match. You also get the ability to create and discover complementary products and services. This means you can supply your customers with more than your core offering. This will have a positive effect on customer satisfaction, as well as on your bottom line. DISCOVER NEW PROFIT CENTERS By...

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5 Ways to Improve Your Voice Search Optimization

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1. SCHEMA MARKUP Search engines scour your site’s metadata in an attempt to rank it accurately. The tags used in a site’s metadata are known as schema markup and can help improve its search engine standing. Consider the terms an individual may use when searching for your site and add relevant tags into your schema markup. It’s important to consider the subtle differences between phrases commonly used in voice searches and the ones in more traditional text-based ones. If you can identify the terms most frequently used in voice searches, adding them to your schema...

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7 Notable Uses of the Internet of Things (IoT)

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WEARABLE DEVICES The demand for wearable IoT-enabled devices has multiplied substantially in recent years. Tech giants such as Samsung and Google have invested heavily in wearable devices and technologies. Their overwhelming popularity has millions of people anticipating the release of new models of smartwatches each year. Wearable IoT devices cover a lot of categories including health, fitness, and entertainment. These devices function through software and sensors which gather data. The data is then stored, communicated, and processed to discover insights about its users. ...

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8 Landing Page Refinements That Supercharge Search Marketing Conversions

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1) CUSTOMIZE HEADLINES Your landing page’s headline is your first and sometimes only chance to hook your visitor into reading more of your message. Don’t waste it by serving up generic headlines that don’t reflect the visitor’s search intent. Always customize your headline by including the search phrase, the referrer, or any other data you can access. A strongly relevant headline will always perform better than any amount of clever but loosely related wordplay. 2) PERSONALIZE THE CTA But customization doesn’t need to stop there. The call to action (or...

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Microsoft Announces a Sandbox Environment for Windows 10

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LSASS AND THE WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM The Windows Local Security Authority Subsystem (LSASS) uses a type of virtual machine similar to the InPrivate Desktop sandbox. LSASS handles many of the security features of Windows. The reason it’s kept in a virtual environment is to protect it from malware. The “lsass.exe” process can be seen from the Windows Task Manager and must run to keep Windows from shutting down to the login screen.  Passwords, password changes, hashes, and access tokens are all kept in Windows virtual machine to protect it from malware. Should a...

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5 Types of Data That Google Might Be Collecting from You

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When you sign up to use Google’s free email service (Gmail), you fill out an account registration page. The registration page asks for personal information like your name, age (birthday), where you live, an alternative email address, and phone number. In addition to those mandatory questions, there are more personal questions that you can choose to answer (but you don’t have to). Google saves all this information when you sign up for a Gmail account. However, besides your name, the rest of the information you give doesn’t have to match your real identity (because Google...

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Why We’re Introducing A Mascot as Part of Our STEP Brand

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Traditionally, a mascot is an animal or object used to represent a group with a common identity. This includes schools, sports teams, organizations, charities, and brands. The choice of mascot often embodies an organization’s most desirable qualities and characteristics, aligned with the brand’s spirit, and is reflected in its daily operations. Let’s continue the mascot guessing game, shall we? Here’s another hint: STEP Software serves our clients with solutions that are nimble, agile, and resourceful. And we pride ourselves on hiring team members who aren’t only skillful, they’re...

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