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SCW has been serving the Spokane Valley area since 1997, providing IT Support such as helpdesk support, computer support, and technical consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Sam is a network engineer with a broad range of experience spanning more than 35 years. He wrote is first piece of code in 1979 and has been involved with the industry ever since. For the last 20 years, he has worked for SCW Consulting where he has embraced his passion for network technology and security.

Powerful Project Tools in the Cloud

Powerful Project Tools in the Cloud

Business workforces are shifting and it’s undeniable that a business’ IT has to shift with it. This can leave users maneuvering through their day using all types of different tools. This can tax an IT administrator. One solution that can be used for several purposes and can help almost any project-fueled business is Microsoft SharePoint. Today, we talk about the positive effect SharePoint can have. 

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Microsoft Thwarts Major Hacking Attempt, For Now

Microsoft Thwarts Major Hacking Attempt, For Now

With just shy of a month before the 2020 United States Election, there has been quite a bit of concern over the idea that external interests may try to sway the results—and it seems for good reason. Only recently, Microsoft interrupted a massive coordinated hacking plot that could have altered the very infrastructure needed to support a fair election. Let’s examine this plot, and what Microsoft did, in some more detail.

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Practical Uses for AI in Businesses of Any Size

Practical Uses for AI in Businesses of Any Size

Technology is getting smarter, from the consumer level on up. As such, artificial intelligence is appearing in more and more applications that all businesses can embrace. Let’s take a few minutes and go over the various ways that artificial intelligence can be used to support your business’ operations.

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How to Keep Your IT Safe from Threats

How to Keep Your IT Safe from Threats

When a component of your business is as foundationally important as your technology infrastructure is, ensuring it operates effectively is imperative to your organizational success. However, this isn’t always as simple as it sounds. Let’s go over what this means for your business and how this challenge can be addressed.

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Everything You Need to Know to Protect Your Business from Shadow IT

Everything You Need to Know to Protect Your Business from Shadow IT

Shadow IT is a big problem in today’s business, but not a lot of people know about it. As powerful as technology can be if it is left unmonitored, it can run into problems. Shadow IT is unmonitored technology because it is brought onto a network without an IT administrator’s knowledge. Today, we talk a little bit about fighting shadow IT and how to get your staff on board.

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Tip of the Week: Six Smart Practices for Data Security

Tip of the Week: Six Smart Practices for Data Security

If asked to list its most valuable assets, every modern business currently in existence should include its data on that list. This is part of the reason that data security should be treated as a priority. We know—this isn’t exactly a small ask, so to help, we’ve put together a few tips to get you started off on the right foot. If you’re already working on your data security preparedness, consider this a refresher.

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What’s Involved with a Professional Penetration Test

What’s Involved with a Professional Penetration Test

One of the most valuable things for a business to know, in terms of its cybersecurity, is how vulnerable it is to breaches and exploits. This kind of information can be gathered via a process called penetration testing, or “pen testing.” Let’s go over how the average pen test is conducted to see how these insights are collected.

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The Relative Benefits of Wired and Wireless Connections

The Relative Benefits of Wired and Wireless Connections

In the not-all-that-distant past, connectivity required an actual, physical connection between two endpoints. As a result, a wired connection was the only option for businesses to access online materials and resources. This leaves businesses with a choice to make: is a wired connection better for my operations, or should I implement wireless connectivity?

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Tip of the Week: Best Practices to Keep IT Happy

Tip of the Week: Best Practices to Keep IT Happy

I want to ask you a question: how is your working relationship with your IT provider, whether you’ve contracted another business, or you have your own internal department? If you suspect it isn’t great, there may be good reason for that.

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Drones are for More than Espionage: Today’s Most Useful Applications

Drones are for More than Espionage: Today’s Most Useful Applications

Drones—they sure seem to be everywhere these days, don’t they? There’s a good reason for that. More than a hobbyist’s plaything or a military asset, drones have practical applications in a wide variety of industries. Let’s go over how different industries have adopted these handy devices to suit their needs.

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Self Education Can Put You and Your Business Ahead

Self Education Can Put You and Your Business Ahead

The pandemic has been difficult for many business owners, but in this time of peril there has been a silver lining. Many business owners have taken some of the time away from business to sharpen their technical skills. Some of the skills these entrepreneurs are looking to improve include their understanding of the software, telecommunications, and marketing that they use in the course of doing business. To do this, they are using some of the same resources that you use when you want help sharpening your skills: YouTube

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What’s Next for Your Business’ IT Strategy?

What’s Next for Your Business’ IT Strategy?

Choosing what technology to invest in can be some of the most important decisions you are going to make for your business. Every business has a technology wish list. Some of those wishes are just based in simple practicality, while others are more geared toward the future. Regardless of how you think about your business’ next technology purchase, you are going to need a plan. Today, we’ll discuss how to approach your business’ IT strategy.

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How Your Technology Can Help Employees Work Safely, from Anywhere

How Your Technology Can Help Employees Work Safely, from Anywhere

With the pandemic stretching on for so long, there are a lot of workplaces figuring out ways to reopen and resume operations. Due to today’s technology providing the option for some, many managers and business owners have elected to keep the office shut down and shift to remote operations. Technology is also assisting those who are going back into the workplace. Let’s examine some of the technology that is being used to accomplish workplace processes, in all the different ways it can.

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How to Improve the Range of Your Wireless Network

How to Improve the Range of Your Wireless Network

Wireless is one of the most popular utilities to have in the office. However, if not implemented thoughtfully, it can cause frustration and holdups to your processes. Therefore, it is important to understand what causes challenges for your Wi-Fi, and how to resolve or work around these challenges. Let’s discuss where these challenges come from, and how to fix them.

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Tip of the Week: Seeing the Value of Google Lens

Tip of the Week: Seeing the Value of Google Lens

Google Lens isn’t exactly the most well-known application amongst Android users, which is actually a real shame. This nifty little utility can provide some significant productivity benefits, if used correctly. Let’s go over a few capabilities that Google Lens can provide to give you some tips on how to use it.

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Hackers are Using COVID-19 As an Opportunity

Hackers are Using COVID-19 As an Opportunity

In true form, cyberattacks have trended upward during the COVID-19 pandemic. With so many people working from home, it’s not much of a surprise that some of the most popular hacking tactics are being used, using the worldwide pandemic as bait. Today, we identify some of these threats.

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Speed Up Your Email Communications with Gmail Templates

Speed Up Your Email Communications with Gmail Templates

Gmail is a popular option for businesses seeking to use email, one of the business world’s most popular solutions, seeing as it has a 33.7 percent market share. Many of these businesses may have found that they spend more time using Gmail than they would prefer. Fortunately, if this time is spent repeatedly writing the same message, there is a solution: Gmail templates.

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Tip of the Week: Technology Etiquette as You Return to the Office

Tip of the Week: Technology Etiquette as You Return to the Office

When a group of people work together in an office, there is a sort of etiquette that forms to help everyone do the most effective work as they can. Of course, with many employees working remotely for some time now, a lot of these behaviors may have slipped. Here, we’re reviewing some of the technology manners that your team should keep in mind so that the whole of your business can work productively.

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Alert: Update Windows Netlogon Remote Protocol Now, says Homeland Security

Alert: Update Windows Netlogon Remote Protocol Now, says Homeland Security

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released an emergency directive concerning a critical exploit known as Zerologon, that affects servers running Windows Server operating systems that needs to get patched as soon as possible.

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Understanding Innovations to Technology Can Help You Use It

Understanding Innovations to Technology Can Help You Use It

In the 1980s, there was a cartoon by the name of G.I. Joe, based on action figures manufactured by toy giant Hasbro. Due to the popularity of this cartoon, they set out time each week to do a brief PSA aimed to educate kids about the dangers of certain actions. The tagline, “Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.” became entrenched in the lexicon. Now, over thirty years later, kids that grew up on G.I. Joe are business owners and have come to understand just how poignant that message is. Let’s take a look at a couple of ways businesses can expand their knowledge base and use it to improve their operations using IT.

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