Network Solutions Unlimited Blog

Pop culture has given us a vivid, if often terrifying, impression of artificial intelligence. When we hear AI, many still picture calculated malice: a HAL 9000, a Skynet, or an Ultron.

The real potential of AI is far more productive, it's less about calculating world domination and more about becoming your organization's most helpful collaborator. Think of it as a JARVIS for your executive team or an R2-D2 for your operational staff: a powerful tool that assists your team in generating ideas, solving complex problems, and completing high-volume tasks. Critically, maximizing this potential doesn't require new hardware; it requires sharpening the very soft skills we already value in our top performers: curiosity, empathy, and resilience.

How often do you find yourself thinking about how new technology will impact your business’ bottom line? Chances are, you have considered implementing a new piece of technology or two, but you might get stuck on whether or not it will actually be worth the investment. This is where you consider the return on investment that technology will provide, or ROI. Here’s how you can make sure your technology is providing results and what you can do if it doesn’t get the results you’re looking for.

One of the greatest threats to modern businesses is a cyberattack and the consequent data breach. These types of threats often target outdated systems that haven’t been patched or upgraded with fixes to vulnerabilities. Today, we want to go over some of the most likely outdated hardware and software issues you might encounter on your own infrastructure so you can address them and keep your business safe.

There’s a lot of comfort to be found in familiarity. It’s why so many of us cling to the way we’ve always done things. It’s the root of the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In many contexts, this can be very good advice. One place it isn’t: your business’ technology.

Neglecting to improve the technology your business relies on can itself incur significant inherent costs that aren’t immediately apparent. Let’s explore them to truly appreciate the benefits of keeping your business’ tech up to date.

Windows 10 is rapidly reaching the end of its secure lifetime, with support scheduled to end on October 14, 2025. While this doesn’t mean that the OS will no longer be available to use, it does mean that it will no longer be able to be safely and securely used—a critically important distinction.

That is, however, unless you pay for the Windows 10 Extended Security Updates… but is this a feasible or maintainable strategy for businesses?

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today is a day to celebrate love, romance, and every butterfly that has ever fluttered in a stomach. However, the greatest loves can bring the greatest sorrow… particularly when the time comes to say goodbye.

Take Windows 10, for instance. PC users have loved the OS for a decade, but in a few short months, it will no longer be a good relationship for anyone—particularly business users—to maintain.

Your business needs software, along with the various integrations it allows for to keep your operations going. A little planning goes a long way, especially if you want to get the best return on your investment. Today, we want to look at how you can find the right mix of software for your business without breaking the bank or experiencing the dreaded “tech sprawl.”

As you should be aware by this point, the Windows 10 operating system is reaching its end of support on October 15 of this year—meaning that it will no longer receive updates of any kind afterward, including critical security updates. What you may not know, however, is that Microsoft is following suit and pulling Office support around the same time.

We frequently discuss how the solutions we offer can make business processes and procedures more effective, but in doing so, we’ve frequently overlooked how the implementation of these solutions—especially in terms of your digital transformation—have impacted your human resources.

Managers and employees might work for the same company, but the reality is that their responsibilities and experiences are two very different things. When you promote someone new to management, or if you join their ranks for yourself, you’ll have to keep certain practices in mind. Let’s go over some of these practices and how IT can ease some of the burden.

There are numerous reasons to update your business’ technology—particularly if this technology is crucial to your business’ processes. However, many businesses still rely on legacy systems. This makes it a challenging prospect to update them appropriately, unless you know what you’re doing. This week, we’re devoting our tip to helping you do just that.

With the release of Windows 11 on the horizon, it is important that businesses looking to implement it start to consider not only their hardware, but their strategy to upgrade away from their current operating system. But that’s a topic for another day—we’re focused today on the folks who don’t even have Windows 10 yet and are still stuck in the days of Windows 8.1, an OS expiring in 2023. Don’t get caught unawares without a plan to upgrade.

Technology changes so rapidly that it can be difficult to gauge whether or not you should be upgrading right away or examining other options for the same purposes. How can you avoid investing in the wrong solution as a result of the excitement that a new idea or concept can bring? It all starts with knowing what within your organization needs to change.

Windows 11 has been released into the world, but has your organization embraced it yet? If not, you’re certainly not alone. Adoption for Windows 11 has been relatively slow, all things considered, and recent surveys and polls show that Windows 11’s adoption will proceed in this fashion–at least for the near future.

Why do manufacturers and developers constantly issue updates and upgrades to their software and hardware solutions? A business’s IT solutions might seem like something you want to set up and not think about ever again, but this is simply not how the cookie crumbles. This week’s tip is dedicated to why your organization needs to have a strategy in place to approach your upgrades.

The capabilities of business technology are truly incredible, and they’re only becoming more impressive. This means that the solutions you have in place now will certainly need to be upgraded to other options at some point.

A wireless network is one of the most useful technologies you have in your home or office. Oftentimes, however, it is set up quickly and will have a hard time broadcasting a signal to the corners of your office. Today, we will discuss ways to ensure that your business (or your home) has the coverage you need it to have, and how to get it if it doesn’t.

Think about how much office technology has changed over just the last 10 years. Remember those bulky, 60-pound CRT monitors? Remember thinking a 32” screen was a TV, not a computer monitor? While you more than likely have replaced those old computer monitors, what is the status of your computer hardware? If you purchased your computer at the same time as that monitor, your hardware is also extremely outdated. How do you know exactly how old your computer is, and when it’s nearing retirement?

Microsoft is just days away from retiring not just one, but two of its most popular operating systems. The software giant has made a point to run a major campaign warning people who are still using Windows 7 that they are going to lose support after the January 14, 2020 deadline; but, as of this writing, there are still over a quarter of desktop users running the software. With the deadline looming, we thought we’d look at what this means for users and go through some of the options they have.

The thing about technology is that, regardless of how miraculous or otherworldly it may seem upon its introduction, it can quickly become so very familiar to us. Hard as it may seem to believe, someday (maybe even soon), things like ChatGPT and other bleeding-edge technologies will seem typical, perhaps even humdrum.