Computerware Blog

It has become evident over the past several years that understanding how to use all the data that your business creates and obtains has been viewed from many different angles. Metadata is all the underlying information about data.

Security is a major pain point for businesses of all industries and sizes, and the numbers reflect this. Here are some of the most notable statistics we could find that prove just how important security is to not just your business, but all businesses.

The other day, we talked about an assortment of security issues that could very well cause harm to your business if you aren’t prepared for them. We wanted to continue that conversation and discuss the things that you need to be sure are done so you are, in fact, prepared.

Businesses face a lot of threats, but ransomware stands out amongst them all. It’s certainly one of the scariest threats out there, as it seems we need to include it every time we discuss cyberthreats. Unfortunately, we really do need to, for one simple reason.

Today’s cars, trucks, and sport utility vehicles are packed with features, many of which heavily lean on technology in order to operate. While these new vehicles and all their new capabilities are certainly appealing to today’s consumer, it needs to be said that one key aspect of technology has not been improved as these vehicles have been innovated upon.

That one key aspect? Security.

When it comes to who is victimized in cybercriminal efforts, there may be a few stereotypes and presumptions that a lot of people may hold. A recent report, Oh, Behave!, released by the National Cybersecurity Alliance and Cybsafe, shows that the real victims of many forms of cybercrime aren’t who many would expect.

You see the word “blockchain” all the time in relation to cryptocurrencies and NFTs, but do you know what it actually means? This is but a small portion of what a blockchain encompasses, and we’re here to discuss today what this technology is capable of.

Whenever you see a data breach in the news, it’s never a good thing. Their impact ranges from minor to severe, and depending on the size and scope of the breach, it could even be bad enough to break a business. Let’s go over how you can keep your business from suffering from data leaks.

With Microsoft Excel, you can use visuals to represent your data, providing greater context for the contents of your spreadsheets and making it easier to communicate what it all means. This week’s tip focuses on People Graphs, a feature that can be powerful when used appropriately.

Are you sure that your business can control all of its data? Are you absolutely certain that it can be accessed when needed? Can you guarantee that it’s as secure as humanly possible, wherever it happens to be? You should be able to answer these questions with an unequivocal and resounding “yes,” yet central data management is far from a simple task.

Most businesses create and hold a lot of data, much of which goes underutilized. Thanks to improved developments in data analytics and business intelligence, more businesses can take advantage of their data to make better decisions and improve operations, thereby increasing profits in the process. At the heart of these developments is data warehousing.

Digital storage is one part of computing that has seen astronomical growth over the past several decades, and with the solid state drive (SSD) more affordable than ever, you have to wonder how well your old hard disk drive (HDD) is holding up. Despite the cost difference between the two, the HDD is a viable option, albeit a mechanical one that is prone to breakdown over time.

We frequently write about topics in relation to business IT, but one that we have yet to cover is Schofield’s Laws of Computing. What are these laws, and what can businesses learn about them?

My team and I are big fans of a good spreadsheet, just as a simple way of organizing and contextualizing your data. Therefore, we’re all for sharing some neat ways that you can make these visualizations even easier to communicate your findings through.

Let’s talk about how you can make your Excel spreadsheets into a heat map, giving you this kind of increased visibility.

The headlines hyping up ransomware as a dangerous threat are not exaggerating. It really is as bad as it seems, although there is often a fair amount of embellished information on what ransomware exactly is and what it does. Let’s take some time to review what ransomware is and how your business can handle it in an appropriate way.

It sincerely seems that every other day features news of another cyberattack, and it isn’t uncommon for the word “ransomware" to be tossed around an awful lot. Let’s take a few moments to go over—or review—what ransomware is, and arguably more importantly, how to handle any you or your team encounters.

The cloud has become a hugely popular resource for businesses of all sizes to lean on for a multitude of needs, many using it for some form of data storage. While using the cloud for this means, however, it is wise for you to do everything available to secure the data you’ve stored there. Let’s go over a few things that we recommend you do to help protect your data.

We talk a lot about best practices that you and your entire workforce need to follow in order to protect yourself, your business, and your customers from data theft. From ensuring that you have strong, unique passwords and making sure two-factor or multi-factor authentication is applied to all of your accounts, to keeping your endpoints updated, a lot of prevention is considered the barest necessities of cybersecurity. It’s worth understanding just how clever cybercriminals are, and just how easy it is to slip up and lose control over your own information.

Regardless of the business attempting it, data migration (or the process of moving data and systems to a new piece of infrastructure) is critical to get right. One way to improve your chances of success is to create and follow a migration strategy, evaluating it as you go. Let’s walk through some practices involved in doing so.

Your typical book holds a lot of data, but now that we have stoked your curiosity and amazement with how much data is held by the Library of Congress, we’d like to put this number into perspective with some everyday explorations. Let’s take a look.