Kim Mays

The term “information technology” is often forgotten. People think of IT and they think of the “tech” who will help fix their computer. But the primary role of information technology workers is to manage the flow of information or data. IT systems provide email, calendars, records, documentation, data storage and more—all of which are forms […]

Four Steps to a Big Data Strategy To many executives of small to midsized businesses, Big Data isn’t even a part of their lingo, much less on their IT radar screen. From what I’ve read, though, just because you may not call it “Big Data” doesn’t mean you aren’t already dealing with it. The size […]

Digital signatures are used to verify that electronic messages and data have come from the proper sender and to irrevocably certify that data was not tampered with or changed during transition from one place to another. The complex algorithms used to create such signatures are extremely complex—so much so that they are more difficult to […]

Five Tips to Make Your C-Level Executives More Social I recommended the use of wikis as inexpensive collaboration tools for SMBs because they allow for inexpensive document storage, project coordination and online interaction among interdepartmental teams. These searchable content organizers can be set up rather easily, but may take some training to allow teams to […]

The biggest change to the Windows OS in a decade, Windows 8 has made many Windows PC users leery of adopting it. Its format is not as familiar as previous versions and the new look and feel may seem daunting. But truly, you have nothing to fear if you take the time to learn about […]

A Snapshot of Tablets @ Work Personally, I have several old cell phones stuffed into a “junk drawer” in my office. I know the IT guys at my previous employer, a midsize tech company, had extra monitors, towers and hard drives stacked in empty cubicles and in the server room. My point is, it can […]

Keep Calm and Patch On This Patch Tuesday In any IT organization, patch management can be an exhausting endeavor, but for large enterprises, it can seem like a never-ending nightmare. With vast numbers of disparate systems, actually determining which systems need patches, locating the patches, installing them and then verifying that they installed properly can […]

Ten Top Tablet Apps for Android Working in a small to midsize business often means taking on many roles. You may be in the office, out to a meeting, on a job site, or working from home. So how do industrious business people stay organized and productive? Usually it requires a team of tech gadgets […]

It would be impossible for a company that has no disaster recovery (DR) plan in place to continue business after a severe hacker attack, fire, flood or tornado. And yet, many companies still do not have solid DR strategies developed. Businesses often find it challenging to make a case for a business continuity plan, much […]

Five Tips to Make Your C-Level Executives More Social While working for a smaller tech company, I dealt with a daily barrage of email and paper memos about changes to company standards and documentation. Those changes often affected disparate departments that used a lot of the same information, but in different ways. Often, confusion arose […]

For businesses, going green often means cost savings. Nowhere can this be truer than in the area of IT. Smaller, more efficient computers and servers, cloud computing and even advancements in software can bring about significant budgetary and carbon-footprint savings for the business. This brings many companies to start thinking about creating greener data centers. […]

Five Social Media Tools to Enhance Customer Service Response According to SMB Group’s 2013 Top 10 SMB Technology Market Predictions, this is the year that small to midsize businesses get serious about their social media efforts. The group’s study shows that 58 percent of SMBs used social media in 2012, but only 28 percent of […]