SCW Blog

Thanks to our role as a managed service provider, a lot of our time is spent working with the technology commonly found in today’s workplaces. A prime example: the laptop workstation. This has given us a perspective of what laptop qualities are best for business use that you might find helpful as you’re looking to add additional devices to your inventory.

Digital storage has been evolving with the development of reliable and long-lasting devices with extremely fast storage and massive storage capacity. The innovation of the solid state drive (SSD) has changed the outlook of storage somewhat, but large-capacity SSDs can be expensive. The hard disk drive (HDD) is still a cost-effective alternative, but it is a mechanical device, which, over time, will be prone to failure. 

People are constantly upgrading their technology. I mean, just take a look at how many people upgrade their phone every year even though innovation of the devices has slowed considerably. Alternatively, sometimes users ignore the signs that it is time for an upgrade even when they are crystal clear. This type of mentality will not help you, especially if your technology breaks down. You need to be able to identify when older devices are holding you back and take steps toward replacing them with better, more powerful ones.

One of the leading printer manufacturers, HP, has been actively attempting to disable any ink cartridges that they didn’t produce, which is causing some strife among users of the products. Let’s take a look at what this means for users and for businesses that rely on HP printers. 

Zero-day vulnerabilities are never fun, but this is especially the case with popular devices, like the many that use the Samsung Exynos modem. Google’s Project Zero has discovered 18 such vulnerabilities in these chips, four of which allow for remote code execution. Why should you be concerned about these vulnerabilities and what can you do to minimize your risk?

When trying to determine if a certain piece of technology should be replaced or just taken away entirely, you should first ask yourself if the technology affects your products or services in any discernible way. If the technology is something that helps with productivity and efficiency to aid in the production or delivery of said product or service, then it’s worth investing in.

Printers are helpful for the office environment, until they start malfunctioning and causing problems. Let’s examine why printers have so many issues and what you can do about them.

Since the pandemic began, the semiconductor industry has been reeling, further placing strain on the technology industry. To aid in its recovery, the United States Congress passed legislation to fund the manufacturing of semiconductors. The CHIPS Act, thought to be in response to both the semiconductor shortage and China’s increasing economic strength, could be a major player in technology production.

A sluggish mouse is one way for you to lose out on valuable moments throughout the workday, so why not give your settings a change and switch up your mouse speed or sensitivity? You might find that it makes getting work done a little less frustrating and much faster, too. Here’s how to do it in Windows 10 or 11.

Moore’s Law may have been prophetic for its time, but it was bound to run out of steam eventually. In 1965, Gordon Moore predicted that transistors inside of a dense integrated circuit would double every 18 months, and at the time, it seemed like an ambitious prediction at best. All these years later, however, computing speeds are doubling every 18 months, just as predicted, but technology may have finally caught up with this prediction. How will technology’s growth change moving forward?

Your business might find itself in a position where it needs new hardware. You must make educated decisions about which hardware to acquire and when, but unless you are a tech guru, you probably need a hand figuring out how to get the most value. 

That’s where we come in.

Let’s face it: with so (so) many streaming platforms now available for us to binge a trendy show or revisit a favorite movie on, technology and entertainment have become inexorably linked. When you really think about it, the technology that makes these streaming services possible is truly impressive. Let’s go over this technology together.

You may have noticed the recent price increase for consumer and business electronics, and it’s all caused by issues related to the global shortage of computer chips. How have these supply chains, stable for so long, been dealt such a severe blow to the point where acquiring new computers and networking equipment is so challenging? Read on to find out.

It’s often said that a clean workspace is a safe workplace. When your workspace is mostly your computer, safety has less to do with it, but that shouldn’t deter you from doing what you can to keep your computer clean. It can help keep it in working order, longer, and is just a sanitary thing to do. Let’s get into why a clean computer is better, and how to go about cleaning your workstation. 

The laptop has been gradually seeing a boom in the office, replacing the desktop for a more portable option for meetings and remote work. Long gone are the days where the laptop feels like a more expensive, less capable option. They do have their detriments, though. One of the most complained about parts of using a laptop is the trackpad. They’ve added features and improved materials over the years, but the overall experience of using a trackpad hasn’t changed very much for over a decade.

Each business uses a certain amount of technology to get things done, but today, no technology is as important to businesses as the Internet. You’ve begun to see businesses of all sizes spending thousands of dollars a month on Software-as-a-Service platforms designed to get workers the tools they need without placing undue pressure on a company’s capital budget. Today, we will talk about another cloud-based platform that is growing rapidly: Infrastructure-as-a-Service.

If you are buying a new desktop or laptop, one of the specifications you might care about is how much data it can store. After all, your family computer needs plenty of storage for your photos and documents, and if you have kids, they’ll want to install games and other applications on it that fill up a hard drive. These days, however, it’s less about how much space your hard drive has and more about how fast it can run. Let’s explain this, and then talk about something you should almost always look for when picking a hard drive for your PC.

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?

Other than matters of scale, most businesses have very similar needs when it comes to their hardware. As a result, many of the considerations businesses need to make are the same, regardless of their size. This week, we’re sharing some of these considerations to help you more effectively plan for any upcoming hardware implementations.

If COVID-19 didn’t already jam up your business’ progress enough after five months, it seems as though the new normal is going to include replacing onsite hardware with cloud-based alternatives. At first glance, the presence of hosted platforms comes as a godsend to the business who doesn’t want to commit large amounts of capital to a hardware refresh. The cost of cloud computing, however, could actually be a major problem for your business. Today, we’ll take a brief look at the hardware choices you have and where the value comes from.