Patriot Tech Services Inc. Blog

The best way to get the most life out of your smartphone is to take care of it. Or, you can ignore proven best practices and witness your smartphone meet its untimely demise. By not taking care of your smartphone in these five ways, you’ll be sure to doom your device.

When was the last time that you ran into a problem that was easily solvable, simply by restarting your computer or unplugging a device from the wall, then plugging it back in? Often times, simple troubleshooting tactics can be enough to resolve a problem, but more often than not, there are issues that can’t be easily resolved. It’s these ones that hold businesses back, and we’re here to help.

Considering how often hackers target financial credentials like credit card numbers and expiration dates, it’s not surprising that ATMs can provide a wealth of information to them. Hackers are willing to go exceedingly far just to get their hands on these credentials--including physically altering the devices themselves to install skimmers and other technology on them. Unless you know what to look for, it can be difficult to tell if a machine has been tampered with.

Mistakes happen, especially where technology is involved. There are plenty of ways that user error can occur when using a computer--many of which are avoidable through simple preventative measures. For our tip this week, we’ll go over some behaviors to avoid when using a computer.

There are good emails, and there are bad emails. You know them when you see them, but can you write an email that’s more likely to be read and acted upon? There are a few key steps to writing them more effectively. For this week’s tip, we’ll walk you through five steps to improving your emails.

Insider threats contribute to a significant number of data breaches. These cases of data exposure are enabled by a member of your staff, whether they intended to harm your business or simply made an honest mistake. With so much focus directed toward the threats out in the world, sometimes we forget that the biggest dangers can be among our ranks. To make up for this, we’ll discuss a few ways to keep insider threats from doing your business too much harm.

You can never know whether or not that app you just downloaded to your smartphone can expose your data or identity to risk. While Google Play and the iTunes store certainly put efforts into ensuring that users can safely browse their app stores, it’s unlikely that they can find every single malicious app out there before it infects someone’s device. Therefore, you need to consider the following measures to ensure that you don’t put your business at risk by downloading unsecure apps.

Passwords are all over the place these days, whether they’re required to access an online account, or access the devices used to open these accounts. While both types of passwords can make for ideal security conditions, this is only the case if the passwords are strong. If your passwords can be guessed by just about anyone, can you really call it a security measure? New insights from SplashData show that passwords aren’t being considered as much as they need to be.

You don’t need us to tell you that it’s extremely dangerous to hand out information to just anyone that contacts your business. This is important to keep in mind, especially considering how the majority of threats can be sent via email. You’ll likely encounter situations where you need to consider whether or not to click on attachments, as you could potentially put your business at risk.

The Internet is notorious for being a minefield of threats, many of which lurk hidden behind innocent-looking links. In order to go about business safely, you need to be able to identify which links you can click; and, which should be skipped.

Oh no. You slap your pockets in a sudden panic, but you only confirm what you suddenly feared: you’ve lost your mobile device, the one with all of your business data on it. You haven’t an idea where you might have left it - all you know is that it’s just... gone.

Despite what you may have heard, a bias is not an inherently bad thing. However, if not considered rationally, a bias can easily lead you to make a business decision that does more harm than good. Researchers have uncovered why we hold the biases we do, and how we might work to overcome them.

Nowadays, every company relies on some kind of software in order to properly function, so you need to ensure that this software is properly managed in order to maintain operations. While this may sound like a grand undertaking, software management is relatively simple and can be whittled down into three steps: leveraging the assets available, testing your strategies, and understanding what it is you have.

It doesn’t matter how good of a service your business provides or how incredible your customer service standards are if your business is lousy at ensuring that payments are received and processed properly. Invoices are an invaluable tool to help ensure your payments due are coming in efficiently. For this week’s tip, we’re examining how to leverage them better.

The Windows operating system has different settings for connecting to different networks. While this may seem like a minor detail, it actually can have considerable ramifications to your cybersecurity, not to mention that of your business. For this week’s tip, we’ll discuss how to use your network profile to stay secure, based on your situation.

The best way to attract your audience is by understanding what they want from your business. Even something as simple as changing up the color of your branding to be more inviting can be extremely helpful. This kind of process is called A/B testing, and it can help you make improvements to the way your business operates.

A computer is a complex machine that demands routine maintenance and intentional caretaking. If ignored, the machine’s lifespan will be cut short. Here are four best practices that will ensure you get the most out of your PC.

Have you ever been in a situation where you have a friend who wants to use your personal computer for who-knows-what? In cases like this, you would want them to use a guest account, so as not to put your personal files at risk. Here’s how you can set it up in all commonly used Windows operating systems.

The addition of the smartphone to every consumer’s repertoire has been great for enhanced productivity and accessibility, but it’s not all bright and sunny for everyone’s favorite mobile device. While productivity might be on the rise, manners seem to be in decline, thanks to people not knowing how to properly use their smartphone in public without annoying everyone around them. Here are four smartphone etiquette tips that every device owner should keep in mind.

October is Cyber Security month. We want to bring attention to this very important issue affecting every person and organization connected to the Internet. When discussing cyber security, we often talk about computer viruses and malware, but these threats are only part of the cyber security equation. It’s just as important that you, your staff, and even your family, are mindful to not overshare information online that can compromise your organization’s security and personal identities.