Joseph Moran

Cloud storage can improve small business owners’ capability to access, share, and protect their company’s data, particularly when they have a limited capacity—or desire—to manage on-site technology resources.  To be sure, moving data to the cloud brings its own set of concerns, ranging from security (vulnerability to breaches) to availability; i.e. will a service outage […]

When small businesses need to provide mobile employees, satellite offices or outside contractors with remote access to a corporate network, they typically turn to VPNs, which require special hardware and/or significant configuration effort to provide secure communication over the Internet. But at the intersection of cloud computing and software-defined networking (SDN) sits an alternative called […]

When mobile professionals need Internet access from the road, they frequently have multiple connection options available at any given location. For example, you might have access to an Ethernet jack, one or more Wi-Fi networks, and perhaps even 3G/4G connectivity, too. Windows has the capability to connect to several networks at once, so when you […]

Once you meet AirPrint’s prerequisites, it’s pretty much a breeze to use. Unlike some of the mobile printing technologies we’ll cover next, you don’t have to explicitly enable AirPrint on the printer or download any special apps to your mobile device. All the built-in iOS apps that allow printing (Mail, Photos, Safari, and iBooks) support […]

If you’ve used Windows 8 — and probably even if you haven’t — you already know it doesn’t look anything like Windows 7. But Windows 8’s changes aren’t just cosmetic; you’ll find plenty under the hood as well, including differences in the features that backup and restore your data, repair Windows when a system configuration […]

Email, much like the old-fashioned postal mail that it’s all but displaced, isn’t a secure way to communicate. For both paper and electronic mail, messages make many stops en route from sender to recipient, and each point in that journey represents another opportunity for someone to intercept a message and make off with any sensitive […]

Along with its heavily reworked user interface, Windows 8 introduces an online store where you can download apps designed to work with the new operating system. Microsoft divides Windows Store apps into twenty categories ranging from Books & Reference, Productivity and Business to Social, Photo and Games. As with any nascent app store, the pickings […]

Being familiar with a previous version of Windows used to mean that — new features and interface tweaks notwithstanding — you’d always know your way around the latest version of the operating system pretty well. That’s no longer the case with Windows 8, which officially launched on October 26th. Because Windows 8 sports a heavily […]

The phenomenon of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), which typically refers to employees using personal smartphones to access business email and other corporate data, is a trend small businesses must increasingly contend with these days.   But BYOD can present a challenge beyond just smartphones. It can also come into play if a small business […]

For any small business that wants to centrally store, share, and protect their important data, a good NAS device is all but a no-brainer. In this review, we take a closer look at the capabilities and performance of the LaCie 2big NAS. LaCie’s newest NAS looks much like its predecessor the 2big Network 2, but […]

After two generally well-received public beta releases of Windows 8 this past spring, Microsoft has confirmed that the next version of Windows should be locked down by early August, with general availability expected by late October. Of course, with each new version of Windows, an inevitable question arises—should you plan to upgrade your small business […]

Maintaining effective small business security is an ongoing effort, and keeping Windows 7 PCs secure isn’t easy. Employing a firewall and anti-virus software are good first steps, but to ensure better control over who uses your Windows 7 PCs — and how they are used — check out the following tips. 5 Windows 7 Small […]