Itek Systems Blog

Do you ever find your eyes glazing over at the sight of a sprawling spreadsheet? That feeling of being overwhelmed by a sea of data is universal… but what if you could instantly start making sense of it all with just one click?

Both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets offer powerful, yet often overlooked, features to help you quickly analyze and visualize your data. In Excel, this is called the Quick Analysis tool. While Google Sheets doesn't have a single button with the same name, it provides the same powerful capabilities through its intuitive menus and the AI-powered Explore feature. Let's dive into how you can leverage these tools to transform your data from a source of sighs to a font of insight.

Real talk: does running your business feel less like you’re crushing it and more like you’re the unpaid, stressed-out IT guy? One second you're closing deals, the next your whole system crashes and you're stuck on a support forum trying to figure out what a "DNS propagation error" is. I can easily say, that’s not the vibe you’re looking for.

Running a small or medium-sized business is difficult enough without having to worry about cyber threats all the time. If you haven’t updated your security systems in a while, your infrastructure could be at risk. In fact, when considering IT security, we recommend adopting zero trust as a security measure, and we’ll explain why.

There are countless web pages offering a wealth of resources, utilities, and references that can greatly assist businesses of all kinds in achieving their goals. What’s even more amazing, these web pages can be turned into applications for simpler, more convenient access, provided you’re using Google Chrome.

Let’s go over how to do so!

A new and formidable predator is stalking the digital waters of the Android ecosystem. Dubbed Crocodilus, this sophisticated Trojan is rapidly evolving, expanding its reach, and demonstrating that it’s likely going to be a major problem. Today, we’ll tell you about the dangerous new strain and what you can do to avoid contact with it, because you will want to.

All around the world, fathers and father figures are celebrated this weekend for what they provide to those who call them “Dad.” One of their gifts is the advice they offer to help us all navigate life more safely and successfully—something we strive to provide to all the businesses we work with to support their essential technology.

In light of Father’s Day being this Sunday, we wanted to emulate fathers everywhere and present some IT best practices phrased as the kind of advice these role models so often provide.

Modern technology practically revolves around USB, but what do you really know about what goes on inside the cables and connectors? Let’s explore some of these minute details and see if we can achieve a new appreciation for this technology.

Businesses are constantly seeking ways to build agility. Like many things, it’s not as easy as just saying it.  If your current technology feels more like a roadblock than a launchpad, it might be time to explore some different strategies. Let's talk about MACH architecture, the powerful framework designed to build a flexible, scalable, and future-ready digital workplace.

The cloud is one of those solutions that you’re either taking full advantage of or you have yet to experience the true benefits it can provide. If you’re still on the fence about cloud migration, we have news for you; this decision is actually costing you in the long term. We recommend you explore the possibility of cloud migration by considering why you’re so worried about it in the first place (and why that doesn’t make sense).

Is your business data hard to get to, like it's locked away and only a few people have the key? That can really hold your business back. Imagine if everyone on your team could easily use all the data you create and collect to make better decisions, faster. That's what data democratization is all about, and it’s a powerful tool. In today’s blog we briefly discuss how it works. 

Cybercriminals are in the business of ripping you off, make no mistake about it. They’ll do what they can to trick you and steal your hard-earned cash. Thankfully, there are common and recurring trends you can look for that expose these fraudsters for what they really are.

There is no question that a small business can benefit from technology, as has been proven time and time again. However, an issue can arise if a business bites off more than it can chew, so to speak, and ultimately creates a spike in costs. A responsible business owner will resist this temptation and prioritize the solutions they need over the ones they want - building profitability and generating capital needed to make other improvements.

In this blog, we’ll examine some of the implementations that can deliver a good return on investment to a small business.

The cloud has proven to be an extremely useful tool for the modern business. Not only does it provide anywhere-anytime access to applications, processing, storage, et al; it also delivers those products as a service, allowing you to budget for recurring costs rather than major upfront ones. This provides your organization with functional, supported, and secure computing environments that eliminate a lot of the support costs that traditional computing environments require. It sounds like a perfect scenario for small and large businesses alike, but things aren’t always what they seem, as a lot of cloud users have found that they have incurred several hidden costs by using cloud platforms. Today, we take a look at these hidden costs.

Data security isn’t a matter to be taken lightly, as too many businesses have found out the hard way. Unfortunately, there are far too many simple ways to correct common security issues - enough that it’s foolish not to do so. We’ll review a few ways to fix security issues, after discussing one of, if not the, most egregious security failings in modern history.

The password isn’t nearly as secure as it used to be. Hackers have begun to take advantage of extremely powerful solutions designed to brute force their way into accounts by using software to rapidly guessing thousands of passwords per second, making it extraordinarily difficult to prepare yourself for them.

What’s the best way to guarantee that passwords aren’t going to be the downfall of your company? A great start is by taking a close look at password best practices and two-factor authentication.

How much does your business rely on technology to keep your organization running forward? As business technology becomes more complex, it’s becoming increasingly popular for organizations to have their own internal IT departments to manage and maintain it. Yet, small businesses don’t often have the necessary funds for such a feat. How can your company afford quality IT service? You can start by pursuing managed IT solutions from a managed service provider.

Despite what detractors say, regulations are in place for good reason. They typically protect individuals from organizational malfeasance. Many of these regulations are actual laws passed by a governing body and cover the entire spectrum of the issue, not just the data involved. The ones that have data protection regulations written into them mostly deal with the handling and protection of sensitive information. For organizations that work in industries covered by these regulations there are very visible costs that go into compliance. Today, we look at the costs incurred by these organizations as a result of these regulations, and how to ascertain how they affect your business.

Profitability is less the measure of being able to turn a profit, and more the measure of how much profit you can make. For the successful small business, the integration of technology can dictate what kind of annual margins you are looking at. For the new company, however, it can be something even more critical: the difference between setting a course for success, or wallowing in failure. Today we analyze the cost difference between hosting your IT in-house, or choosing to host it in the cloud.

The late American author Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.” Written in the 20th century, it has been put in practice by 21st century businesses. As the Internet has grown, the amount of companies expanded, and the amount of data that those companies collect has grown exponentially, especially now that there is a market for such data.