Question 1

Uninstall Bloatware

Accepted Answer

Bloatware is a sort of strange category in the software world. Unlike Malware or Spyware, which describe applications distributed with malicious or deceptive intentions, Bloatware isn’t really specific to the software itself. Bloatware is often used to describe software that comes pre-loaded on devices like smartphones or tablets, and while that is an accurate use of the term, it really doesn’t paint a complete picture. Bloatware, at the end of the day describes any software that adds unnecessary bloat to the system – in most cases, it just means software that you don’t want, or didn’t intentionally install.   Microsoft allows system builders to configure their own OOBE (Out of Box Experience), which is to say that it lets companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and many others to customize what windows looks and feels like when installed on their hardware. Part of this process allows them to include software that installs when you first log into Windows.   Now, most of the time this is harmless. I call it benign, but ignorant. Device manufactures seem to think that because you purchased a laptop from them that you must also want to use half a dozen media viewers, checkup utilities, cloud storage monitors, and various other items that you probably have no intention of ever using.   By itself, this is only mildly annoying, and the process of removing most applications is as simple as opening the control panel and uninstalling it. There are instances where this is not the case, and the uninstallation process is more involved, requiring registry edits, or the removal of background services. There isn’t a process that works for every piece of bloat and the unfortunate reality is that you won’t ever be able to fully remove all traces of the pre-installed apps without an extraordinary amount of work.      Sound bleak? It is. The best step is simply not to waste your time sorting out which applications you want to keep and which ones you want to remove. It’s better to simply download the latest version of Windows directly from Microsoft and install it yourself, cutting out all the bloat in one swift motion, and preventing any accidental omissions. Just make sure that once Windows is installed, you download all the latest drivers for your hardware!

Question 2

Disable visual effects

Accepted Answer

There is a very aptly named menu within Windows 10 called Performance Options. You can find this menu by simply pressing the Windows key and typing ‘adjust the appearance and performance of Windows’.   Each of the options in this list represents as visual effect within windows that can be enabled or disabled by simply checking or checking the corresponding box. Each of the visual effects is unique, and consumes a very small amount of system resources. The beauty of this menu is that you can pick and choose which visual effects to enable or disable, creating the experience that is tailored to your preferences. 
The value added by making these changes will vary based on your device hardware. In modern systems with speedy quad core processors and 16GB of RAM, you may not even notice a difference. However, if you are running more dated hardware with slower single or dual core processors, and 8GB of RAM or fewer, the difference can be more pronounced.

Question 3

Keep your disk clean and manage your storage

Accepted Answer

Keeping your disk clean helps improve the performance of Windows 10 in a number of ways. As an Operating System, Windows is doing a lot of things at once, and whether you’re compiling code for your newest application, editing videos or photos, or simply playing your favorite games, Windows is constantly juggling the tasks you throw at it with along with several other tasks and services that run silently in the background. We’ll talk a lot more about some of those background services in a later post but for now what matters most is knowing that all those tasks are reading and writing data to and from your drive in exactly the same way that your open applications do, and that means they are all competing for bandwidth.   A traditional spinning-disk drive has the least available bandwidth and is often the biggest performance bottleneck in a device. Even a simple SATA SSD has exponentially greater bandwidth and will make a significant difference in the responsiveness of your OS, application load times, and more. While all of the tips in this blog will help to improve performance, no single change will be a simple or a noticeable as the upgrade from a spinning-disk drive to an SSD. If you aren’t currently using an SSD, that should be your first priority.   If you’re already using an SSD and you want to speed things up a bit, the first order of business should be reducing the number of applications that compete for bandwidth on your device. A good place to start is to look at your list of installed applications and remove any of them that you don’t regularly use. Give priority to programs that perform the most read/write operations. If you’re unsure which programs read or write the most, open up Task Manager, select the Process tab, and sort by disk usage. This can help you determine which applications are the worst offenders.   It’s also a good idea to separate your storage into multiple drives if your systems permits. Using one physical drive for Windows and a second physical drive for your applications and storage is not only the best practice, it also ensures that your programs aren’t competing with Windows or eating into your I/O threshold. 
Another important tip is to use a browser that allows you to cache to RAM such as Firefox. By default, all your browsing activity is cached to your local drive, meaning that every image, every video, and every block of text on every page you visit is stored (at least temporarily) on your drive, and while it usually doesn’t consume to a huge amount of storage space since it gets wiped regularly, it represents a lot of reads and writes that can be avoided if you simply configure the browser to cache all those files to RAM instead. As an added bonus, since RAM is significantly faster than an SSD, your typical website will also load a little bit faster.

Something else to try is keeping your documents, photos, and videos on an external drive. Not only does this free up tons of space and, by extension, a small amount of bandwidth, it also prevents you from having all of your eggs in one basket. If the documents, photos, and videos in question are of any value, you’ll want to have them backed up anyway and not tied to your device.   It’s not a simple task and it’s more complicated than a simple one-and-done. Managing your storage requires a little bit of regular maintenance and TLC. Plan ahead if you are building a system and make sure that it has more than enough storage, as a consequence of how drive controllers’ function, higher capacity equates to faster read and write operations, and better longevity!

Question 4

Manage Paging File

Accepted Answer

Page files, sometimes called swap files, are a bit of a relic. In a bygone age, system resources came a much higher premium, and RAM was both scarce and expensive. This led software engineers to find creative workarounds for loading memory intensive applications without the necessary RAM.

What a Page file functionally does is reserve a portion of your storage, be it on a traditional HDD or a more modern SSD, and allow applications to use that storage as if it were RAM. While there are a few very niche use-cases for this, the average user will never really see a benefit – in fact, what you will notice is an accumulation of bloat as you attempt to multi-task. Examples include:

Having multiple applications open at the same time.
Having multiple tabs open in your browser. Working in a particularly large Access, Excel, or SQL dataset.
Using creative applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, or Audition. Putting aside the larger discussion about whether or not this feature was ever a good idea, the RAM this process simulates is no longer at the premium it once was. When Windows XP was released in 2001, it required a minimum of 64 MB (yeah, that’s right, Megabytes) of RAM. And this was at a time when having 256 MB (exactly one quarter of a Gigabyte) was almost excessive. Hard drives at the time were averaging 16 to 20 GB, and ultra-expensive, premium drives that offer up to 36 GB of storage were so far outside the price range of the consumer that they may as well not have existed at all.   With modern machines now averaging between 8 and 16 GB of RAM, most applications run with plenty of headroom to spare, and the need for a Page File is simply no longer there. It’s also important to know that it has never been simpler or more affordable to upgrade your RAM. A single 16GB DIMM average just over $100, and 8GB DIMMs are regularly available at under $40. This means that if you find yourself in one of those unusual situations where you actually need more RAM, just go buy more – why have Windows manage a messy page file that provides a subpar experience?   Disabling the page file is super easy, all you need to do is visit the ‘Performance Options’ menu, and click on the ‘Advanced’ tab.   Click on the ‘Change…’ button in the Virtual Memory section, and uncheck the box labeled ‘Automatically manage the paging file size for all drives. Then, click the radial button labeled ‘No Paging File’ and click ‘Set’.   You will need to reboot for these changes to take effect, but once you log back in you will be using RAM the way God intended, and not relying on your HDD or SSD to pull double duty.

Question 5

Disable System Restore

Accepted Answer

System Restore is an interesting feature within Windows that, in my view as long since outlived its usefulness. It has been a part of Windows for over twenty years across its many iterations. At the time, IDE drives were the norm and the SATA drives had not yet been introduced to market. Under these conditions, operations such as installing Windows on a new PC was an extremely lengthy endeavor. This meant that it was a better investment of your time to have Windows periodically create restore points so that, in the event of a critical system failure, you could potentially revert back to the state it was in at any one of those points.

Two things have really eroded away the modern user’s need for this feature. In the first place, storage hardware is orders of magnitude faster and more efficient that it was twenty years ago, and installing a fresh copy of Windows on a new PC is only about 5-10 minutes of work. This means that getting up and running again after a complete system failure is far less of a setback than it was before. Additionally, the modern computing environment has changed dramatically, and users have more options than ever before when it comes to protecting their data. Removable media has evolved quite a bit, and the easy with which critical data can be stored on network drives, or external disks means that the loss of an operating system is even less critical.

If your system does suffer some form of attack or failure, you are better served by following Ripley’s advice and nuking it from orbit… just to be sure, and then reinstalling the OS from scratch. Not only is this the safer approach, it’s actually quite a bit faster than restoring from a backup, and by disabling System Restore, you free up additional system resources that can be better put to use on, well, anything else.

Disabling System Restore is relatively straight forward. As with so many features, you can find this one in the System Properties menu, under the System Protection tab.   There isn’t much to do here other than look at your existing settings, which will let you know which drives are currently being including the Restore Points, so just click on the Configure button to continue.   Here we can see just how much storage Windows is using for this “feature”. Because Windows reserves a portion of your drive space as a percentage, the amount of storage you lose will scale up as your drive size increases. The included example is from a 240GB SSD. If your system uses a larger disk, a larger portion will be reserved by Windows for these operations.

The first thing to do is click the Delete button, confirming that you want to remove any existing restore points (Windows creates one by default when you first install).   Confirm the deletion and then select the radial button labeled Disable System Protection. This will prevent Windows from creating any additional restore points, or reserving any of your storage space. Once that’s done, reboot and enjoy!

Question 6

Always keep firmware and OS up to date

Accepted Answer

Keeping your device firmware up to date is critically important to maintaining a fast and healthy system. Not only does having the latest firmware help to protect you from potential attacks and other vulnerabilities, but it often includes bug fixes or efficiency improvements that make it easier for your device to perform its intended task.   In a nutshell, firmware is simply software loaded onto a ROM or similar chip within a piece of hardware. Not all hardware requires or includes firmware, in fact most do not, but many do. Common example of devices that include firmware are storage drives, display adapters, wireless adapters, and many more.   By making sure your firmware is current, you ensure that you always have the latest features enabled, and that any bugs or vulnerabilities are corrected. These improvements are often subtle, having only a minor or indirect effect on your experience. Your device won’t suddenly compile code any faster, or process photo edits more efficiently, but it saves you the time and trouble having to re-image your device should you fall victim to an attack.

Question 7

Always keep firmware and OS up to date

Accepted Answer

Firmware and OS updates. Again. I know… I’m tired of saying it too, but it really is that important. Microsoft releases updates to their integrated anti-virus software on an almost weekly basis, and publishes larger updates on a less frequent, monthly schedule. Additionally, Microsoft has maintained a bi-annual release schedule for Windows version updates. All of these updates matter and there really isn’t any good reason not to update when new patches or versions are released.

For most users, there is nothing to lose apart from a little time, which is required during the updates, after which your device will be safer and more resilient to potential threats. However, there are some things to take into consideration when planning your updates as a business owner or IT professional. Firstly, schedule your updates for weekends, when less critical work is being done or when fewer clients or customers will be affected by a short downtime.   Second, make sure that your data is redundantly backed up in a secure place before updating to avoid data loss in the event of a power failure or other disaster.   Third, ensure that your firmware is updated before your OS updates and patches so that your hardware never interferes with or acts a bottleneck for your OS or installed applications!   Following these simply steps while keeping your devices current is a critical part of your infrastructure and will go a long way towards keep you safe from predatory attacks, accidents, or even disasters.

Question 8

Keep your disk clean and manage your storage

Accepted Answer

When you first set up your device, Windows will prompt you to use a Microsoft Account – don’t do it.

While there are a few conveniences that come along with using an online account, the price you pay as a user is far too high! Using a connected account allows Microsoft access to all of your files at all times, and changes many default settings in Windows that will ultimately result in major reductions to performance and privacy. The most basic difference between using an online or a local account is the way Windows settings are configured from that point on.   If you use an online account, the default location for saved documents and other files becomes OneDrive, which, apart from requiring more bandwidth, CPU time, and IOPS on your drive, it also gives legal ownership of said files to Microsoft, and grants them access to your sensitive data at any time, without your knowledge or consent. 
Other changes include data collection from your devices such as microphone and camera, logs of your application usage history, website traffic, and many more. All of this information become property of Microsoft and can be sold, in aggregate, to third parties, also without your knowledge or consent. 
Additionally, using an online account stores your login credentials – be it a password, fingerprint ID, or facial recognition data – on Microsoft servers, so that they can accessed from any other devices you connect to the same account. This increases the cost of failure, should you forget a password, or have your security breached, it would no longer be local to one device, but could affect any number of devices that have accessed the internet with that account.

Question 9

Disable unused devices

Accepted Answer

Every device is a little different, and not just in superficial ways like the shape and color. Every laptop has a different array of connected devices such as webcams, microphones, speakers, touch adapters, fingerprint readers, and many more. In most cases, the connected devices are there to add an important function to the device that users need in order to do critical work, but this is not always the case.

If you are a web developer, blogger, or writer, your primary use for the device is as a terminal, and the hardware you need on your mobile device is pretty basic. You’ll certainly need a color accurate display, a solid keyboard, and a wireless adapter – assuming you aren’t using your laptop at a docking station. But what you probably won’t need are webcams, or microphones, touch digitizers, and so on. Disabling those devices will actually make a huge difference in your battery life since each of them is functionally always on and waiting for your input.

This is just an example of course – perhaps your work is very social, and you regularly take part in conference calls while on the go. In this case you probably want to keep your webcam, microphone, and speakers all enabled.
 As you fall into a groove with your workload, you’ll start to realize which devices you regularly make use of and which ones just sit in the background and drain your battery. Disabling devices you don’t use all the time can easily be the difference between making through the day on a charge, or having to interrupt your work to find an outlet or charger.    As an added bonus, disabling some of those unused devices and not suing so much power, often times results in cooler operation and better performance! If your laptop could talk, it would thank you!

Question 10

Always keep firmware and OS up to date

Accepted Answer

Just as we mentioned part 1 of Ways to improve the performance of Windows 10, we’ll start off with something obvious. Keep your firmware and OS as up to date as possible. With Windows 10, this is easy, and be easy I mean almost impossible not to do. By default, windows regularly checks for updates in the background and will prompt you to install them at scheduled intervals. You can set active hours such as 9:00am to 5:00pm so that Windows will not interrupt your work day with updates, and Windows will do its best to install updates outside of that timeframe. However, if you only shut down your laptop at the end of the day, windows will not be able to perform updates, and if enough time passes without updating, Windows will eventually override your work hours and prompt you to update, even during busy hours.    In most cases, Windows updates are simple patches or security patches (we’ll talk about that in a later series.). But there are occasions when the new drivers are released for your hardware that meaningfully improve their performance or efficiency, saving you precious battery life!   On mobile devices there are a lot of factors that determine how much battery life you have, the most important of which is the capacity of the battery itself. Since that isn’t something you can generally change, what you have to work with is how much power all the connective devices need to do their jobs. Every device takes power, from the display, to the wireless adapter, and everything in between. Keeping Windows up is a great way to ensure all of those devices have current drivers, and aren’t gobbling up unnecessary energy.

Question 11

Manage your display brightness

Accepted Answer

Under normal circumstances, the display on laptop or tablet is the power-hungry component. I say “under normal circumstances” because no two devices are really alike, and if you are using a mobile workstation to render complex 3D models or environments than the combination of your CPU and GPU as a pair will consume more, but that’s a fairly unusual use-case.

For the purposes of this article, let’s assume that your tablet is not under such a demanding workload. In these situations, the display is almost certainly going to eat up more of your battery life than anything else.

As a general rule, you should not have your display brightness anywhere near its maximum unless you are working outdoors, in direct sunlight. If you are indoors, with remotely decent lighting, setting your brightness to about 40% is usually more than enough to eliminate glares or reflections, and should allow you to clearly whatever it is you’re working on. However, as I mentioned, this is a general rule and won’t apply equally to every laptop.

No two laptops or tablets are the same, and the display is a big part of why they are all so different from one another. The most common type of display is an IPS (In Plane Switching) panel. You’ll find this type of display on most luxury or “prosumer” laptops and tablets such as the Microsoft Surface lineup, Apple’s Macbooks and iPads, and most of dell’s XPS products. There are a lot of reasons why IPS panels are common on higher end devices, such as wide color reproduction, great viewing angles, aging, and a few others, but what matters for this article is that they have the highest peak and sustained brightness, and that means that drain the most juice from your battery.

TN (Twisted Nematic) and VA (Vertical Alignment) panels are also pretty common, but are found most commonly on budget friendly hardware, or in some cases, very niche gaming hardware that relies heavily on the higher refresh rates and lower response times of these panel types. Again, for the purposes of keeping your battery alive, TN and VA panels have significantly lower maximum and sustained brightness than their IPS counterparts, and thusly use less energy. To make matters even more complicated, not all panels of the same type are made equal. For Example, Acer, LG, and Samsung all manufacture IPS panels for everything from smartphones to refrigerators, and no two of them are quite alike either. Within a single product family you can find IPS panels that offer completely different refresh resolutions, refresh rates, and color reproduction values. And as you probably expect, each of them will draw more or less power based on their maximum brightness.

So as you can see, the general rule of 40% is exactly that. General. It’s not going to deliver the same results for every device, but it represents a good baseline for a wide range of hardware configurations.

For our tests, we ran a Surface Pro, a Surface Laptop, and a Macbook Pro (all 2019 models) on a typical workload, and found that the reducing the brightness from 100% to 40% resulted in almost doubling the life of the battery.   In the case of our Macbook Pro, we got 3.7 hoours of use at 100% brightness, and just a hair under 7 hours of use at 40% brightness.On our Surface Pro we got nearly 5.2 hours of use with brightness at 100%, and 10.1 hours with brightness at 40%The results on the Surface laptop were very similar with 5.4 hours of use at 100%, and 10.2 hours at 40%.

Question 12

Local SEO Audit & Action Plan - $995

Accepted Answer

Appearing in Google search results is one of the best ways to share your business with potential clients, drive them to your website and grow your business! But it's so, incredibly confusing to know what you've done right and what you haven't and how to get yourself on those first pages when your ideal client searches. Not only will I review where you are now, but I'll provide you an easy to follow checklist with instructions on how to improve your rankings.   You will get: - Two consultations. To discuss your goals and business needs and to discuss your action plan going forward. - An SEO audit of your business. - An easy to follow action plan with clear steps on how to proceed.   $995

Question 13

Cost & Income Data Organization & Reporting - $995

Accepted Answer

Do you struggle with your cash flow data and keeping track of your incomes and expenses?

You will get: - Two consultations. To discuss your goals and business needs and to overview and train you on your reporting
​- An audit and optimization of your income and expense collection process

​$995

Question 14

Web Traffic Data Reporting - $995

Accepted Answer

Are you looking to understand your website data and have ongoing insights into your web traffic? ​ You will get: - Two consultations to determine your goals and optimize your set-up - An audit & optimization of your Google Analytics & Google Tag Manager to collect visitor data, website goal performance, etc. - An action plan to help you continue managing your data   ​$995 ​ Add-On: Custom Data Studio Report ​ $500

Question 15

Process/Workflow Consultation & Action Plan - $995

Accepted Answer

If you're overwhelmed with the business part of your business and need help setting up easy to follow processes!   You get:
- Up to five consultation meetings to discuss your business, your current processes and your difficulties and to craft an updated process and workflow plan to help save you time - A targetted, easy to use plan for how to implement your new processes and workflows with tools you already have or plan to purchase

$995

Question 16

17hats Consultation & Action Plan - $750 or $500 as add-on to Process Audit

Accepted Answer

Whether you have​ an existing 17hats account or are starting a new account, this service will provide actionable steps to make sure you're using your 17hats CRM/Project Management software to it's fullest!   This service is intended if you already have a pretty consistent process, but need help implementing it in 17hats.   You get:
- Two consutlation:  before to identify process and goals and after to go over 17hats set-up, make adjustments and answer questions - A comprehensive list tailored to your business of 17hats elements to create and how they work together

$750 or
$500 if add-on to Process Audit

Question 17

Email Audit & Action Plan - $495

Accepted Answer

Struggling with how often to sent emails? How to set-up follow-ups. How to standardize your email communications to make sure every client gets a similar experience? Let's create a plan!
 You get: - Two consultations to determine your email goals - Work together to create templates you can adjust to your voice to fit your business needs - Action plan how to implement and automate your emails to save time and create consistency for every client   $495

Question 18

17hats Client Touch-point Consultation & Action Plan - $495

Accepted Answer

Want to set up your 17hats to automate all lead forms, emails, questionnaires, quotes and contracts to make sure each and every client touch point is predictable and automated?

* Does not include a contract for your business. Please consult with an attorney for all legal documents. Once you have a contract, we can add it to your 17hats and implement using it with your clients. ​ You get:
- Two consultation to determine your goals and client process and craft your touchpoints to work for your business - Complete, easy to use action plan with training on how to implement your touchpoints step by step

$495

Question 19

Disaster Prevention & Recovery Audit - $1000

Accepted Answer

​We will perform a complete examination of your IT infrastructure and document the topography of your small business, allocation of technology resources, and network hardware. You will receive:
A detailed report on your small business's resistance to disaster
A recovery plan in the event of a catastrophe
Steps to increase the stability and reliability of your IT

*Includes full technology audit   $1000

Question 20

Security & Vulnerability Audit - $1000

Accepted Answer

We will perform a robust audit of your IT infrastructure. Specific attention will be given to device and network security. We will document any present vulnerabilities and gaps in security, and present detailed documentation, along with recommended next steps.*Includes full technology audit

​$1000

Question 21

Technology Audit - $1000

Accepted Answer

We will perform a full audit of your technology assets, including personal computers, printers, network routers and switches, servers, and any mobile devices such as tablets. ​ $1000

Question 22

Tier Three - Starting at $2000 per month

Accepted Answer

Ideal for business with up to 25 employees and about 2-3 devices per employee.

​Includes initial consultation and bi-annual Technology Audit

Starting at $2000 per month with annual contract

Question 23

Tier Two - Starting at $1000 per month

Accepted Answer

Ideal for business with up to 10 employees and about 2 devices per employee.

​Includes initial consultation and bi-annual Technology Audit

Starting at $1000 per month with annual contract

Question 24

Tier One - Starting at $250 per month

Accepted Answer

Ideal for business with 1-2 employees and about 2 devices per employee.   Includes initial consultation   ​Starting at $250 per month with annual contract

Question 25

How would I hire someone to help with my IT needs?

Accepted Answer

You’ll want to reach out and speak to the professionals in your area about your needs. Make sure they understand your business and goals, your approach to technology and what role technology plays in your day to day. It’s also important that you find someone you can get along with. After all you’ll be seeing them on a regular basis and want to make sure that you have a good working relationship!   We, at Seraphim Systems would love to hear from those of you in the Columbia, Missouri area and chat about your business, your managed IT needs and how your business can benefit from working with us.

Question 26

Why would I want managed IT?

Accepted Answer

As a business owner I’m certain you’re passionate about what you do! You started your business because what you do means a lot to you and you want to share your experience, expertise and passion with those around you. You probably didn’t start your business so you could wade through technology instruction manuals, software update schedules, and tech releases. While keeping up-to-date on the tech you use in your business is necessary, and can help you grow and can help make your business more efficient, there are days when it’s just overwhelming and annoying! It can be a huge waste of time and that is the last thing you need as a business owner.   Big businesses have an entire staff of IT professionals to help with these problems. But if you’re a small business or a shop of one, you probably can’t afford that, and the good news is you don’t need to! Managed IT professionals can help you handle all the IT headaches and make your technology work for you, without the price tag associated with a full-time staff.

Question 27

Will managed IT be expensive?

Accepted Answer

In reality contracting with a professional could save you money in the long run. Yes, there is a cost involved, though it is not as expensive as you might think. A managed IT contractor charges just a fraction of what even a single full-time employee would cost and is typically able to provide you with everything your business actually needs.   Additionally, the valuable service you’re paying for brings more to your business than it costs you. The lack of down-time trying to recover data or replace equipment helps your business continue to earn money without delays.   An experienced IT pro will also be there to perform technology audits and make sure that the hardware and software you’re purchasing is exactly what your business needs. You won’t have to worry about purchasing things that can’t keep up and having to upgrade too quickly. You also won’t have to be concerned with buying too much and wasting money. You want to make sure that every dollar you spend stretches as far as possible, and your IT professional can help you do just that.   Working with a good managed IT company also means less time keeping track of IT expenses and planning for big changes ahead of time. Nothing throws off a budget like a surprise expense, which can be costly if it prevents you from making other important business investments. Planning for technology growth and updates and maintenance helps prevent the costs associated with a sudden budgetary surprise!

Question 28

How frequently should you replace your hardware?

Accepted Answer

The short answer is as often as you need to. But that doesn’t really make sense without a bit of context. Firstly, there is no magic number. You don’t need to update your hardware every 5 years, or 3 years, and certainly not every year. What works for one business may or may not work for another, and it varies further based on what hardware you actually have, and how you use it. In most scenarios, when you purchase a computer from a retailer, it will come with a 30 to 90 day warranty depending on the manufacturer. Most OEMs such as Dell or HP offer extended warranties for as much as 5 years, although this additional coverage comes at cost. A good rule of thumb is to replace any hardware that falls out of warranty. If you purchased a 4-year warranty with your new workstation, you should probably consider replacing it after 4 years have passed. The reasoning behind this is fairly straightforward; A warranty is basically a form of insurance – just like the kind of insurance you pay for to protect your car. And when you purchase a new car, it’s value it very high. If you get into minor accident and scratch up the paint, or maybe dent a bumper, the cost to touch up that paint and pop out the dent is very small when compared to the cost of buying a whole new car. But as your car get solder that value begins to shift, and for older vehicles the cost to repair is often greater than the value of the entire car! This happens quite frequently, and not only to older cars, and when it does happen, the insurance company will tell your that your car has been “totaled”. It doesn’t matter if your car is twenty years old and worth $1,000, or if it’s brand new and worth $50,000. If the cost to repair is more than cost to replace, you’re in the market for a new car. This is exactly how it works with computers. The warranty acts as your insurance, and if the hardware fails while it’s under warranty, you probably won’t have to spend more money than the device is worth in order to get it up and running again. But if that device is out of warranty, the cost to repair can be greater than the cost to replace in no time! But it isn’t all doom and gloom in the land of computer hardware. If you’re a savvy user, and you’re smart enough read our series of articles on optimizing your PC, you can really get a lot of value out of your devices. A well-maintained computer isn’t going to magically fall apart on the day it’s warranty expires, and for the many users out there who rolled the dice and opted not to purchase a warranty at all, you can still save money and extend the life of your device by upgrading specific components over time like your hard drives, or purchasing additional memory to keep up with increasingly demanding app creep.   The best way to know what maintenance and replacement schedule would work best for your business and your IT needs is to have a consultation with a local IT professional. If you’re in Columbia, MO, reach out to us and we’d be happy to evaluate your hardware, help keep it running and save you as much money as possible in the process.

Question 29

How does a managed IT professional really help my business?

Accepted Answer

First they’re experts! Just like you’re an expert at your craft and others come to you to advise and provide services or sell your goods, IT professionals know their stuff. If you hire an IT pro to maintain your technology for you, they’re keeping up with your needs, the latest tech trends, latest security updates, and so much more, to make sure they can provide your business with great service and keep you worry free. When you experience a problem they’ve probably already seen it and solved it. Which means they can save you time on researching, dealing with consequences or unresolved technology issues, and worrying about how your business will run. Instead they can resolve problems quickly and get you up and running in no time.   In fact, having a managed IT professional contracted with your business could help you avoid the problems in the first place! Because they are involved in consistent maintenance on your hardware and software and they’re familiar with your business practices, they can help catch a problem before it even occurs. By being proactive and performing required maintenance you can make sure that all of your equipment is running the way it should be and is replaced as it begins to reach the end of it’s life. This way your business is much less likely to be interrupted by problems.   And if an issue were to occur, you could have recovery and disaster prevention plans set up with your managed IT contractor to make sure that situations are handled quickly, efficiently with as little loss of your precious business data as possible!

Question 30

Can I insert an image, video, or gif in my FAQ?

Accepted Answer

Yes. To add media follow these steps:  1. Enter the app’s Settings 2. Click on the “Manage FAQs” button 3. Select the question you would like to add media to 4. When editing your answer click on the camera, video, or GIF icon 5. Add media from your library.

Question 31

How do I add a new question & answer?

Accepted Answer

To add a new FAQ follow these steps:  1. Click “Manage FAQs” button 2. From your site’s dashboard you can add, edit and manage all your questions and answers 3. Each question and answer should be added to a category 4. Save and publish.

Question 32

How do I edit or remove the “FAQ” title?

Accepted Answer

You can edit the title from the Settings tab in the app.  If you don’t want to display the title, simply disable the Title under “Info to Display”.

Question 33

What is an FAQ section?

Accepted Answer

An FAQ section can be used to quickly answer common questions about you or your business, such as “Where do you ship to?”, “What are your opening hours?” or “How can I book a service?” It’s a great way to help people navigate your site and can even boost your site’s SEO.

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