The Benefits Of Having A Computer Science Degree For Your Career

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Pete Brown

Computer Science degrees, like most scientific disciplines, are not easy. However, many people around the world have a knack for them and love the topics, or believe that having a degree from said sciences will provide them with plenty of opportunities. Computer science is a study of algorithms, processes, and of course, computer-related elements.

In order to study computer science, there are tons of other disciplines that you must learn as well. With this vast knowledge, you will have unlimited opportunities, a well-rounded education, and the degree will be a stepping stone into your career; read on to understand more about these benefits.

Unlimited Opportunities

As mentioned, learning computer science does not merely mean that you will be sitting in front of a computer and only learning hardware and software. You will be learning math, mainly logic and probability, some physics, electrical engineering, and a background in biology will not hinder the process either. For those particularly interested in electrical engineering, pursuing an FE Electrical certification could complement your computer science degree, making you even more versatile in your career. With these topics, your mind will expand to unlimited opportunities and you will become skilled in no time. With that degree, you can take it to most companies and they will snatch you up immediately. As long as you have a computing device and electricity, you will be able to work anywhere.

Well-Rounded Education

You do not have to go further than the premises of your desk to learn and have a computer science degree. Many universities, especially with Covid-19 and quarantine, have provided online courses for people to receive a degree without leaving the comfort of your home. Some of the most popular bachelor’s degrees in the technology field include computer science, computer engineering, software development, and information technology. Most programs will require you to learn these topics before choosing a specific specialty. This gives you a well-rounded education so that you are able to know which field you want to dive deeper into.

Steppingstone Into Your Career

Many companies believe that your type of education will propel you greatly into your career. Although school and work-life have notable differences, your degree definitely gives you a glimpse into your future and what your career may look like. Depending on where you acquired your degree, you may have had fieldwork as well, which gives you an even higher chance and opportunity to be better prepared for the actual work you will be doing. Depending on the business or company you choose, it may allow you to hone your skills and use them to make positive changes in the world.

A computer science degree is not an effortless degree to achieve. It requires hard work and discipline, and a lot of trial and error. The important thing to note is that you must do your research before choosing a place to achieve that degree. Whether you go the online or offline route, check the statistics and percentages of alumni, and where or what they work. You can even try to get in contact with them, as most programs have an alumni section with contact sheets to get to know more about the course itself.

How IT Services Can Help in Your Company’s Growth

Posted on December 6, 2020 by Charlene Brown

It is a fact that the client prefers to work with businesses that are capable of keeping up with technology trends. It is important for any company to be aware of the importance of IT support services, along with its cost, demands, reliability, sense, and portrayal of dedication, and particularly the small and big changes in its structure while assuring more streamlined operations.

Innovative resources, as well as problem-solving that IT services and systems provide are wide. If any high technology apparatus is not functioning properly, it can leave a significant effect on how the business services, as well as its functions, are executed overall. This brief list will give you an answer on how IT services can assist your company to grow, and which benefits you can reap from them.

Productivity and Profitability are Increased

In case you have old computers or an outdated operating system, the productivity will be slowed down by 30 or even 40 percent. The decrease in productivity can seriously hurt any business.

To ensure that the employees perform their work to the best of their abilities, upgrading your business system is a mandatory action to take. Having IT experts will allow the upgrade, and as a result, your business will thrive. By giving workers the right kind of business tech, productivity is guaranteed as well as income, as some business gurus will state. Professionals from Summit Advisors IT would agree that these problems can crag your productivity and profitability down. For instance, some companies have invested in an internet network that is private and have provided their employees through their IT service with all the necessary tools they need to make things done. The benefit of this for the company would be faster communication and all workers will be able to share files between themselves. Firstly, the basics must be ensured before the results can be reaped.

For example, having WiFi connected computers and printers that do not take a long time to load.

Can a Good IT Service Stop Hackers?

Keeping your data secure would be of utmost importance for any company and business. Outdated technology can put your firm a risk which increases the possibility for files and data to be lost or even worse, corrupted, and used. Older servers are prone to crash which is also a hindrance. All of these problems can cost any firm a valuable amount of time and money.

Cyber attackers, or hackers, are always updating their methods of attack which also increases the overall risks you might encounter. Without having your software regularly updated by IT support, these new methods will easily breach and access your business’s critical and important files that are supposed to be private, for example, your customer data.

Part of the reason why it is recommended to have new hardware or software upgrades is that older systems are developed in a way to keep up with ever-evolving types of threats and offer the best possible cybersecurity defenses. The data of your company will be vulnerable without proper and modern security measures.

Optima Tax Relief Provides Tips on Filing an Amended Tax Return

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Addison Yes

Discovering a mistake on your tax return doesn’t mean that you need to immediately panic. In most cases, errors made on your taxes can be fixed by filling out Form 1040-X, Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return.

Optima Tax Relief looks into common reasons why people may need to file an amended return:

Information on a tax return was entered incorrectly.
Claiming credits that a taxpayer wasn’t eligible to claim.
Claiming deductions incorrectly.

The IRS can also correct any math or clerical errors on a tax return and may even accept returns without certain required forms or schedules. In any of these cases, a taxpayer is not required to submit an amended tax return. For information on state tax rates, check out the list of states by income tax rate from foreignusa.com.

Taxpayers who are required to file an amended tax return should know the following:

Taxpayers can now file an electronic Form 1040-X only for the 2019 tax year. Forms 1040 and 1040-SR returns can also be amended electronically if the original 2019 tax return was also filed electronically.
For taxpayers that filed a paper 1040-X, they will need to mail it to the IRS. The IRS provides locations on where an amended return can be filed based on location on their website. Taxpayers filing form 1040-X in response to an IRS notice should mail it to the address indicated on the notice.
Taxpayers who chose not to file their 1040-X electronically or don’t have the option to file electronically should complete a paper form 1040-X.
Tax filers should attach any forms or schedules that have been affected by the change.
Form 1040-X should be filed separately for each tax year. Every amended return should be placed in its own envelope. The year of the original return tax year should be entered at the top of Form 1040-X.
Additional taxes should be paid in order to limit interest and penalties.
Taxpayers should file Form 1040-X to claim their refund within three years from the date they filed their original tax return.

What Startups Should Do When a Software Problem Happens

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Charlene Brown

Fixing a software problem can be a huge headache for many startup owners. However great the technology may be, it’s only great while everything works spotlessly; otherwise, it will just waste your time and resources. If you are experiencing a software problem within your startup, here are some of the steps you should follow to fix it as soon as possible and with the least amount of stress.

Find out What the Problem Is

It doesn’t matter how big or small the problem you are confronting is, as a rule of thumb, there is only one type of approach that will guarantee you success, and that is an “effective problem-solving” approach. To effectively decrease the time needed for the problem to be solved, you must have a fundamental and technical understanding of all the technology your startup uses. The unique perception of your specific startup technology will give you a unique and better insight to solve the problem at hand. Once you have found out what the exact problem with your software is, you will know what you are going up against. Only then will you be able to make the best plan to solve the problem, and you will be able to compare the strategies to decide which steps should be taken.

Work With Your Team

No matter how big or small the business is, there are always different branches within it that work together. One important question that needs to be asked is exactly which branch of your startup is experiencing software problems. A good way to find out if the problem is in accounting or, for example, in the sales department of your startup is to consult your whole team. If you don’t know who is experiencing the problem, you won’t be able to put your best efforts into solving it, and you could end up in an opposite direction that doesn’t even pose a problem. Find out if the problem at hand is experienced by a single user, a whole department, or the entire main office, including the remote branch offices.

Bring in Some Outside Opinions

As we’ve mentioned earlier, sometimes it can become clear that you need to involve someone outside of your company to solve the problem your startup is experiencing. Luckily for you, many experienced services offer you IT support for small business, should you need it. These services come in handy if your startup has a busy schedule, which prevents you from using the expertise of your employers to solve the problem without getting behind on your work. Some additional benefits of hiring experts outside of your office are that they specialize in solving these kinds of problems daily, leaving them with a lot of experience. And experience offers them unique insight into the problem, which allows them to solve it much faster.

IT Troubleshooting

If you happen to be experiencing a severe problem, you might get tangled up in all the possible solutions and the questions that lead to it. Getting ahead of yourself can only irritate you and your employees, meaning the problem is yet to be solved, but with an inconvenience too. To help you improve your troubleshooting skills, the most helpful questions you can ask are when the problem started and whether it’s constant or it happens on occasion. Furthermore, you should ask if some recent changes could potentially be the cause of the problem your startup is experiencing. If you can recreate the problem, take the time to do so because it can be very beneficial in cases where you might need to involve third-party technical support.

Avoid the Same Problem in the Future

There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get after you’ve solved the problem that was giving you a huge headache. It doesn’t matter who solved it, whether it was the staff within your startup or you went to help an outside source, the problem is bygones. You should enjoy this problem while it lasts. After all, as you very well know, you need to make sure you don’t go down this path ever again because you’ve spent so much time stressing out, and you probably spent a lot of money. Once the problem gets solved for good, focus your attention on finding the cause and do your best to prevent the same from happening to your startup ever again.

Being at the helm of a startup means there are many aspects for you to handle at once, however, any kind of IT issue should be your priority. Luckily for you, if you follow all these steps, your software problem is very likely to disappear at the speed of light. Be sure to prevent this problem from ever having to occur again.

The Most Useful Software for Startups in the SaaS Sector

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Amy Fischer

Every startup is an adventure. It promises even more challenges for a software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup due to the revenue model’s peculiarities and severe competition in the industry.

Luckily, the market abounds in software that can help emerging companies address those challenges and manage their growth. These tools help with the critical business areas of product development, communication and collaboration, marketing, sales, payment processing, customer support, and tracking SaaS KPIs (key performance indicators).

This post shortlists ten essential SaaS startup software. Whether you are about to enter the game or are an experienced player, you may come across a tool that will help improve your existing processes and boost your business.

Internal Team Communications

You will find Slack in every top-10 of startup software. This cloud-based tool makes communications among the team members more comfortable, transparent, and efficient. Its plentiful customizable notifications, direct messaging, audio and video calls, conversation archives, and file-sharing features facilitate collaboration. Slack has mobile apps for iOS and Android and can be integrated with your Trello or sales CRM to provide your team with automated notifications about the deals. You may even set up a Slack bot for your office Spotify account and manage your music playback from it.

Project Management Software for Startups

In the area of product development and management, three startup tools are recommended:

Basecamp helps every team member stay on the same page and become more organized and productive. It empowers teams to communicate better with fewer meetings. They can assign tasks, collaborate on projects, track each one’s milestones, manage deadlines and workload, receive notifications, and share files from one platform.

JIRA’s flexible infrastructure and ease of configuration were designed for Agile technical development teams. The system helps manage the software development and testing cycle, centralizing all tasks and documentation and streamlining the tracking of issues and bugs. Its low cost and cloud-based deployment suit startups perfectly.

Trello adheres to the kanban system and facilitates task prioritization, project planning, task assignments, and progress tracking. Trello boards may act as your internal product road map, your customer-facing product road map, content marketing planning tool, and more.

Marketing Tools

Newsletters will be at the core of every SaaS startup’s marketing efforts: emails are a great way to update customers on their news and features. MailChimp is arguably the most effective email marketing service, particularly praised for its ease of use. The software helps create smart marketing campaigns and offers plenty of ready-made and customizable newsletter templates to create appealing emails. It’s free until the company has over 2,000 contacts.

Social networks provide another excellent channel for conveying your product’s message and connecting with the audience. Buffer is one of the best tools to help SaaS startups maintain an active presence across Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. They can centralize multiple platforms, pre-schedule social media posts and presences, and view the analytics of their social media activities.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Salesforce CRM software enables startups to do everything under one roof: partner management, opportunity management, sales data management and forecasting, and marketing automation complete with a contact manager to aggregate the information and assess leads. The contact manager module covers all essential customer information like the company’s history, social status, reputation in the market, and communication details. The reports and dashboard feature facilitates in-depth analysis. Salesforce excels on pipeline reporting and campaign management, and their customer experience management solution also finds out information about the competition and provides deal-tracking functionality.

Financial Reporting

Baremetrics offers metrics and engagement tools for SaaS businesses. This powerful software allows SaaS startups to follow their Monthly Recurring Revenue, Net Revenue, Average Revenue Per User, Customer Lifetime Value, User Churn, Active Customers, and other critical business metrics. The revealed insights will help the leadership make profitable decisions and plan and strategize for growth years down the road.

Customer Support

Customer support can make or break your SaaS enterprise. The cloud-based Zendesk is arguably the most popular help-desk solution. It’s easy to deploy and implement, integrates with a company’s email, website, and social media, and can handle thousands of tickets daily. Accessible on desktop and mobile devices, it provides a handy and flexible solution for small businesses that have a home-based, freelance support team.

Customer and User Feedback Software

Customer feedback is one of the SaaS KPIs. A good feedback tool will continuously collect customer feedback, monitor the customers’ behavior, and get actionable insights for enhancing user experience and increasing conversions.

Hotjar is an all-in-one analytics, conversion rate optimization, and feedback tool that visualizes your users’ behavior and helps understand your customers’ concerns and requirements. The tool’s heat maps and screen recordings will show you where your site visitors are facing issues, the site areas popular with users, and what catches their eye. Features like conversion funnels, creation and distribution of surveys, and form analysis will provide additional insight into your users’ behavior.

Final Thoughts

For a SaaS start-up business, software choices largely determine the enterprise’s success or failure. Nowadays, these tools are almost indispensable for day-to-day management, monitoring product and customer success tools, boosting growth, and strategizing a startup’s future.

This post presents only a drop in the ocean of economically viable and useful Saas Companies to try. The key to success is to research, pick the ones that meet your business needs best, and use them regularly and for a long time. In that case, they will tremendously improve your business processes, boost the teams’ efficiency and effectiveness, and help the entrepreneurs focus on growth.

A Black Friday Sale Guide To Help You Get All the Gadgets You Need

Posted on November 29, 2020 by Charlene Brown

Black Friday is an exciting time of year because of all the amazing savings you can find. This is a time when you are able to score those amazing gifts for yourself or your friends and family at significantly reduced prices than you would find on normal shopping days.

With all of that in mind, Black Friday can still be hard to navigate for the less savvy buyer. There are a few tips and tricks that you need to keep in mind to make sure you actually get the deals you want on those special gadgets. Check out this short guide on getting the gadgets you need this Black Friday.

1. Compare Your Options

You really need to be a more savvy tech shopper by focusing on the comparisons between offers. Not every retailer is going to give you the same savings on the same product. A pair of headphones could be $200 on one site, and $230 on the other. While $30 isn’t a huge amount, it adds up when you start buying more and buying gifts, either for yourself or others. Shop around as much as possible to double-check if the deals are even, and look for things like free shipping or extras thrown in.

2. Find Coupon Offers

Even NordVPN coupon codes can help you save, so it’s not just on physical products. These coupons can help you save on software bundles, tech gadgets, and just about anything so you have to channel your inner saver and search far and wide for in-store coupon offers and online coupons. Adding up these savings can help you cut down the final sale price enough that you can spend on other deals.

Coupons are a lifesaver for Black Friday deals and shopping in general, but for gadgets and tech products, that percentage of savings could really help you out.

3. Wait For More Deals

Black Friday is usually about a week-long for most retailers or at least the American Thanksgiving weekend, but the deals don’t start and end in this week. There is another special day called Cyber Monday where tech deals become much more prominent. Being patient can help you score better deals with a little special know-how. There could be some eye-popping savings, but that doesn’t mean you need to jump on them right away. If you take a little time to compare prices, as mentioned earlier, and wait for more retailers to offer savings then you can be sure to keep your budget in-tact on any tech you want.

4. Check For Used Products

Not all used products are a good deal, which is a fair disclaimer for you heading into Black Friday shopping. Still, it can be fruitful for you to be a little more frugal and find deals on tech products that are in-store certified used. There are usually two types, open box and refurbished. Open-box is a product that could have been quickly returned with no problems, or refurbished, which is a little more used but still very much operational. These gently used or returned items could be your ticket to saving money on gadgets.

5. Find Price Matched Gadgets

Another trick is to find price matching tech products. A lot of retailers will use price matching to allow you to compete with other shop prices. If a laptop is $1200 on another site and the retailer you are buying from has it for $1500, sometimes they can match the price to keep you as a customer. This doesn’t work all the time, but many places do it to ensure that you spend your money with them.

6. Wait Until Next Year

The last piece of advice is not what everyone wants to hear but could be useful if you don’t want to get buyer’s remorse. Sometimes it could be simply better to not buy that new gadget and save your money until next year when a new version comes out. Technology is improving at rapid rates so by next year, it could be even better and you can spend your money on other gifts for yourself. If it is for a family member or friend, then by all means go for it, but if it’s for yourself, then think if you can wait until next Black Friday for a good deal.

Black Friday is once again here and for all your gadget needs, you should use these tips and tricks to help score those amazing deals and come away happy with your shopping experience.

Awesome Gmail Features You Probably Didn’t Know

Posted on November 28, 2020 by Charlene Brown

A lot of people have one goal when it comes to their email. They just choose the right email service, set it up and that’s it. Most of them are not even interested in many different features one has to offer.

On the other hand, there are those curious users that are always looking for something hidden and at the same time beneficial for their email. It can either be an interesting feature or an overlooked trick that makes things much more exciting.

This type of obsession may lead you to some spectacular discoveries. If you are currently using Gmail and you haven’t uncovered anything interesting yet, check out our list of things that cannot be spotted easily.

Hidden Gems Of Gmail

Switching Accounts

This option is available to iPhone users for quite some time, but now, those who have Android phones accounts can do this too! This is a great alternative for those who have more than just one account.

The feature is called swipe-to-switch which means that it enables you to swipe (both up or down) on your Gmail Account avatar that can be seen in the top-right corner and to switch between Gmail accounts. Once you do this, the icon on your first profile will be changed.

Free Phone Calls

There are many applications, such as Whatsapp, Viber, Facebook messenger, etc. Even Microsoft allows you to do this, through Outlook, however, you have to leave the program and go straight to Skype.

With Gmail, things are much simpler. All you have to do is to press ” Make a call “, at the bottom of the screen and just insert the number you wish to contact. Then you’ll be connected through your webcam microphone. All calls to Canada or the United States are free for the time being.

We Bet You Didn’t Know This Either!

Restore Things

Many people have accidentally deleted something they weren’t supposed to. Don’t worry. Even if this happens to you, those deleted events can luckily be restored. How, you wonder… There are a few easy steps that have to be taken.

Go to your Calendar and open My calendars list
Hover over the calendar and next to the name, press the Down arrow Trash
Go to the box that is placed next to the event you want to restore and do one of these things: click Restore selected events if you want to restore deleted event or click Delete Forever if you want this event to be gone forever
If you want to remove every single event, just press Empty trash now that’s placed at the top

Mute Fiddling Conversations

Most of us are constantly bombarded by boring, insignificant spam emails or at times someone may send you an email chain with a bunch of people you do not even know. Then you start receiving their replies and you suddenly realize you are stuck in a never-ending cycle.

How can you escape from it? Fortunately, Gmail allows its users to simply silence any conversation that is irrelevant to them. All you have to do is to select that boring email and tap on the three-dot icon on the bar above. If you do this, you never see these emails again because they will go directly to the archive.

Undo Sent Messages

How many times have you unintentionally sent a message to someone? It has probably happened a lot. Well now, thanks to Gmail, you can easily correct this mistake by utilizing the undo-send button.

This is probably one of the biggest benefits that Gmail has to offer. Firstly, it was just a tester from Google Labs. In the meantime, it has received a lot of positive reviews and comments from the user, hence, they decided to turn it into a feature.

If you want to use it, just go to the “General” option and press the “Enable Undo Send” button to cancel the message. Once you send an email and you will notice an undo link in a yellow floating box. Just click on it and you will be presented with two options – to delete it forever or to re-edit it.

So Many Wonderful Features!

It’s easy to see based on this list that Google (Gmail) is taking care of its users by simplifying email management. Now, you do not have to spend hours and hours searching for different options.

Additionally, Gmail is great because it is packed with numerous amazing features. And to think we named only a couple of them. Needless to mention, that you can use them in your marketing activities, all you need to do is to get a few established Gmail accounts, Accsmarket might help you with that. All these elements make this service even more outstanding than it appears at first glance. So what are you waiting for? Go and explore it!

6 Tips for Creating a Comfortable and Effective Workstation

Posted on November 28, 2020 by Charlene Brown

Various studies have shown that a person’s workstation can affect the quality of their work by a sizable margin. This has pushed employers to exert effort to provide the best possible work environment for their employees to thrive and thus increase productivity and work quality in the office. There are different factors to take into consideration when thinking of ways to increase workplace efficiency and productivity. Having some tips to help you through the process can make it much easier and more organized.

1- Organizing a Workstation Layout

Speaking of a more organized process to make your workplace more efficient, the first tip that you can use is properly organizing your workstation layout. A person’s environment greatly affects their thinking patterns. If you are surrounded by any kind of clutter or have a messy workstation in general, you will have a hard time focusing on work. You will find yourself becoming distracted and you will feel frustrated. You might even decide to take more breaks than necessary just because of how frustrated you are because of the mind-blocks that you have. Decluttering your workstation and keeping it minimalistic can help clear up your mind and help you focus on the tasks at hand. This is because your brain is assaulted by hundreds of different stimuli at once, so it cannot really focus on the task you want to get done.

2- Investing in Adjustable Office Furniture

Convertible standing desks and swivel chairs with adjustable back support can accommodate the needs of the individual using them depending on their height, weight, and preference (whether they prefer to work in a standing or sitting position). Forcing yourself to do a time-consuming task in one position can be physically straining, especially if you’re compelled to stay seated for long hours. However, with a standing desk converter, your body can be in motion while you work. What’s more, these pieces have been proven to reduce back pain, increase energy levels, and improve overall health. This leads to more productive hours at work since you’re not struggling with discomfort.

Purchasing padded and height-adjustable chairs will ensure that you’re always sitting in the correct posture. Further, monitors should always be placed at eye-level, so it’s also a good idea to invest in monitor stands to position your displays in a way that would not strain your eyes or neck.

3- Having the Right Workstation Furniture

A tip that could prove to be really helpful in making sure that you are productive is getting the right office furniture. Being comfortable gives you the benefit of being able to do work for long periods of time without getting tired or feeling irritated. One of the basic workstation furniture pieces that you need to get a hold of is a good-quality desk. If you want an added boost in productivity. The design of the Desky dual ergo edge sit stand desk gives you an idea of what an ideal ergonomic desk should look like and how its design allows you to work comfortably without having to damage your back and neck. Getting a desk that allows you to work when you are sitting down in a chair, or standing up will make a bigger difference in your productivity than you might ever think. If you are not the type of person who can concentrate on work while standing, then you can invest in a high-quality chair that gives you the support you need while working.

4- Adjusting Monitor Settings

If your work requires constant use of a laptop or computer, then it might be a good idea to adjust your monitor settings. Eye strain is one of the side effects that many office workers face when they have to do work on their computer for hours at a time. Eye strain is caused by the intensity of the light being emitted by the monitor as well as fonts that could cause you to constantly squint at the screen. Adjusting your screen’s settings to ensure that you can work without harming your eyesight is important if you want to be productive.

5- Having Enough Space

If you still haven’t set up your workstation, then this is your chance to ensure you start off on the right foot. Make sure that you have a productive time at work by giving yourself the space you need to move around. If you have limited space to work with, get smaller furniture pieces so that you have space to roam or to move around without bumping into things or other people going about their day.

6- Having Better Access to Equipment

Having better access to equipment will help you get your work done faster because there is less of a chance of getting distracted by something else. Studies have shown that when employees need to navigate through the workplace carefully just to reach the equipment they have to use, they are less likely to do the task quickly. They get more easily distracted, not to mention that having limited access to office equipment such as printers or office supplies can derail work since they are necessary for most tasks.

Using these six diverse tips, you will be able to have the most productive and effective workstation ever. You do not have to worry about going home at the end of the day dissatisfied with the amount of work you finished. Better yet, you will have an easier time exercising your creativity and innovativeness so that you can be more efficient and productive.

Tech Upgrades to Modernize Your Business

Posted on November 27, 2020 by Carol Trehearn

Staying up to date is hugely important no matter what industry you are in as this allows you to stay competitive, streamline your business and satisfy the changing needs and expectations of your target customers. Those that fail to modernize will inevitably get left behind, but it can also be hard to stay current when there are so many developments and trends changing in every industry. Technology is one of the most effective ways to stay current, especially in a time when many astonishing developments have taken place in the tech industry. With this in mind, here are a few tech upgrades to make that will help to modernize your business.

Cybersecurity

First, you need to make sure that you are current when it comes to cybersecurity.

It is unfortunate, but this is an enormous and growing problem that affects businesses of all sizes and in all industries so you need to make sure that you have the best possible protection in place with antivirus software, a VPN, firewall, password managers and other cybersecurity solutions.

Remote Working Tech and Tools

Remote work was steadily becoming more common prior to the pandemic, but is now considered the new normal with many businesses planning to stick with remote work even once the pandemic is over as it can bring many perks for all. In order to take advantage of these benefits, a business needs to have the best remote work technology and tools available, including screen sharing software, video call software and anything else that will help to make remote work easier for staff.

Cloud Migration

Cloud computing can bring a wide range of benefits to a modern-day business, including reduced IT costs, access to virtually limitless computer resources, easier collaboration remotely and reduced IT maintenance. So, it is easy to see why so many businesses are migrating to the cloud. What is cloud migration? This is the process of moving your digital assets from old infrastructure to cloud infrastructure and it is an important way to modernize that could transform your business and improve daily operations.

Artificial Intelligence

AI is a type of tech that is becoming widespread and is no longer just seen as a futuristic type of technology in sci-fi movies. One of the best aspects of AI is that it can be used in so many ways, so getting to grips with this technology can help your business greatly and allow you to improve many areas. A few of the best uses of this type of tech include:

Data analysis
Process automation
Chatbots
Streamlining logistics
Predicting behavior
Improving marketing

Any business looking to modernize and stay current should consider these tech upgrades. Technology is one of the most effective ways to modernize a business and can help firms to succeed in several different ways, but it can also be challenging to keep up to date when there are so many impressive developments constantly being made. Starting with these will make a big difference and help your company to stay current.

How To Be Effective In Managing Your Expenses While You’re Out Traveling

Posted on November 27, 2020 by Charlene Brown

When you are traveling, your whole routine gets disrupted – It can be difficult to stay organized. Although many of us associate traveling with taking time off, going on holiday and enjoying ourselves, others are required to travel constantly as part of their jobs.

When you travel as part of your work, you may be required to pay for everything yourself and keep track of your expenses so that you can claim your money from the company at a later date. This can be a headache considering that you are doing your job that has required you to travel, and also have to keep note of everything you spend your money on, not only to ensure that you can receive it back, but also making sure that you do not spend more than you should. In this article, we will advise you of how to be effective in managing your expenses while you’re out traveling, by keeping track of where the money goes and also by ensuring the amount spent remains as low as possible.

Understand Your Company’s Expense Policies

If your job requires you to travel often, whether you work for a company or are self-employed, you will have to submit expenses that are associated with the job that you do. It is crucial that you understand your company’s policies around expenses and reimbursement when you travel. Although this may sound like an obvious tip, not everyone knows exactly what type of expenses the company will cover and what the process of claiming your expenses entails, particularly if this is a new job for you. This is essential if you want to increase your efficiency and ability to manage your expenses while you’re traveling.

Keep All Evidence

You cannot forget that most companies will require evidence to go with the expenses claim submission to prove that you have indeed made that payment and that it was necessary as part of your time away for work. This evidence comes in the form of receipts, itineraries and invoices. Always ensure to keep all of these documents as well as make notes of where you spend the money and how much. This may seem a difficult chore at first, but it will quickly develop into a habit that will significantly improve how efficient you are at managing your expenses.

Put Evidence into Different Categories

We have discussed the importance of keeping your receipts safe. No matter how long you are away for, it is very likely you will have many different receipts for a diverse range of categories. It is a good idea to have different folders or envelopes, where you can keep all your receipts, invoices and any other evidence separate. This will make a significant difference when managing your expenses.

Get an Expenses Tracking App

Keeping track of your expenses is not an easy task when you are away. The experts behind Keeper Tax suggest using a mobile expense tracking software so that all the information is kept safe and in one place. This will make it much easier to manage all expenses and to submit the claim to your employer. Most of these apps even enable you to add the receipts and evidence of expenses so that it is less work for you.

Submit Your Report ASAP

Doing the expense report can be overwhelming, particularly when you are not organized to begin with. For this reason, many people end up losing money due a poorly written expense report or they simply find it easier to lose the money completely rather than submitting an expenses claim at all. This is why it is so necessary that you are organized from day one at managing your expenses, as it will ensure that you can submit this as soon as possible. You do not have to aim to have it done on the same day but at least within 48 hours.

Plan Ahead

One of the most important tips when managing your expenses, is to be organized and to plan ahead as much as you possibly can. This cannot be stressed enough. If you know that you will be away, make sure that you have an app where you can input your expense and keep track of these, ensure that you remember to get evidence with every expense, and that you separate them as we discussed above. The better prepared you are, the more efficient you will be when managing your expenses.

Managing your expenses can be demanding when you are away. When it comes to money, companies often want to ensure that they are not being tricked and that the expense made was essential. Make sure to follow some of the tips above, which will hopefully support you to effectively manage your expenses while you’re out traveling.

What Can You Do With a Self Directed IRA?

Posted on November 26, 2020 by Charlene Brown

The prevailing belief towards getting wealthy and accumulating strong self-worth is through hard work. While this may be true to an extent, the real way to build wealth is by creating multiple streams of income and earnings. Investing is one of the quickest ways to start setting your future self up for bigger gains and a better life.

The best way to be able to retire comfortably is by building a retirement portfolio through income investing sooner rather than later. How exactly do you start investing? Well, one of the safest options around is a Roth IRA, which works as a retirement account of sorts, but obviously, it is a little more complicated than that. There are also self-directed IRAs that have their own unique advantages, and here are some of the things you can do with a self-directed IRA.

More Portfolio Diversification

Investing in many different retirement plans or other investing portfolios limits you to a select few assets. Common ones include mutual funds, ETFs, stocks, and bonds. While these are usually safe and proven ways to help build your money, there are so many more options out there to focus only on these few. Being able to diversify your portfolio with rare Earth metals (gold, silver, palladium, platinum), REITs, land trusts, start-ups, equity, and emerging assets like cryptocurrencies helps create a much broader and potentially more lucrative long term investing. Self-directed allows you more freedom to choose what to invest in.

Investing in gold, in particular, can be a valuable addition to your diversified portfolio. It has long been considered a hedge against economic uncertainty and inflation. Additionally, one of the advantages of investing in gold is its liquidity. Gold is recognized globally as a valuable asset, making it relatively easy to sell, and you can often get good money for it, especially during times of economic instability when its value tends to rise. This liquidity and stability can provide investors with peace of mind, knowing that they can easily convert their gold holdings into cash when needed.

More Control Over Investing

Just like you have more control over how to diversify your portfolio, you can expect to be able to grow your knowledge of investing and financial literacy regarding assets as you continue to grow your self-directed IRA. Learning the basics is always important for opening a Roth IRA, but you also need to understand that you have to do it yourself eventually. Financial advisors are great at what they do, but the information is out there, and learning while you invest is always an option that is available.

As a word of caution, investing is not a game, and people can lose a lot of their money when they take risks that are emotionally driven instead of backed by knowledge. It can be incredibly hard to build wealth when you are investing without knowledge, so self-directed lets you have more control over what you do and how you learn, but it does not mean your investments will always go up.

Long Term Wealth Planning

Back to the beginning, making your money solely through income will be able to sustain you, but it will never get you rich unless you are earning a doctor’s salary, so for that, you need to invest. The same applies to building wealth that you can pass down. Generational wealth, as it is called, is lost after just two generations because there is no educating the youth of a family on the power of things like compound interest. Being able to set up your grandchildren one day with a strong portfolio of investments should be something to consider now while you have the time, or at least pass it down to your own children eventually.

Building generational wealth can be done with other types of investing accounts, but a self-directed IRA has an interesting benefit. There is a provision that allows the tax-free gains from the IRA to be passed down, which helps set up your beneficiary with the growth you made. Over a long period of time, the right assets can lead to the planning that helps a family become sustainable and self-dependent with their money.

Also Read: What is the difference between a Roth 401(k) and a Roth IRA?

Better Protection of Assets

It is somewhat of an oxymoron to say that a self-directed IRA provides better protection for your assets, but there is a reason to make that claim. While you are in charge of your investments and there is no hand-holding from a financial advisor or brokerage firm to help you, you are able to move around your assets to protect from downturns much easier than some other types of accounts.

During an economic downturn, your stocks may be stuck losing value, and selling them would be a bad way to reposition yourself. With a self-directed IRA, having a diverse portfolio that allows you to shift your assets around provides some extra protection against volatility. Of course, it requires savvy investments in the first place, but having multiple exit strategies is better than being funneled into net losses for your assets.

Using a self-directed IRA is not for everyone, but it does allow you to do some interesting things with your investments to grow your wealth and your future generation’s wealth. Now that you know some of the things you can do with a self-directed IRA, you can make a better choice on what type of investing account to choose.

Should you Buy the New iPhone 12 or Wait for the Samsung Galaxy S21?

Posted on November 25, 2020 by Sunil Singh

With the recent release of the new Apple iPhone 12, many personal tech connoisseurs are wondering if this year might be the year to actually wait on their new iPhone purchase, in favor of the Samsung release in several months.

Just released in October, the iPhone 12 is a spectacular device. The Samsung S21 has a (possible) January 2021 launch date, rather than mid-February as is usually the norm and promises to be beyond even what we’ve come to expect from Samsung.

Apple users and Android users tend to belong to loyalist tribal camps, making it difficult for users to change devices after years in one tribe — but, could this be the year? The year 2020 has thrown everything else upside down, so why not your phone preference too?

Let’s take a look at the specs of both and see if the S21 is worth waiting for.

Screen

It looks like the S21 Ultra will have a display between 6.7 and 6.9 inches, and will measure 165.1 x 75.6 x 8.9mm (10.8mm if you include the extra camera bump), making it slightly smaller than the S20 Ultra before it.

When it comes to valuable screen real estate, the iPhone 12 Pro has 6.1 inches, falling slightly behind the Galaxy S20 and far behind the sew S21 model. Unfortunately, the iPhone 12 is also outstripped by Samsung’s unbelievable 120Hz screen refresh rate, giving the Galaxy S20 (and presumably the S21) a super smooth visual experience.

You can test the quality of the new screens by playing the vibrantly-colored games and your other favorite mobile games too. It’s a good idea to try each out for yourself but if I had to bet, I’d put my money on the S21 being the superior mobile gaming phone for sure.

Camera

For the amateur photographers and selfie-lovers out there, the camera specs of both phones are probably not going to be different enough to sway you one way or another. The iPhone 12 and S20 (previous model) were so darn close that they’re pretty much matched for quality.

The Samsung S21 Ultra has a rectangular camera array to accommodate four camera lenses. The Ultra also has a larger camera bump, presumably to provide space for the increased hardware. This makes sense since there have been rumors among the leaked images that the S21 will possibly offer two optical zoom lenses, offering 3x (S21) and 10x (Ultra) zoom.

The Secret Weapon

Samsung has just announced a major breakthrough in the development of RAM for mobile devices, and it could make it into the Galaxy S21 due out in the early part of next year faster than any of its contemporaries.

The company says it’s begun the mass production of its new 10-nanometer 16GB LPDDR5 RAM chips, built using a new technique called extreme ultraviolet technology. According to Samsung, these new chips are so fast that they can transfer 51GB of data in as little as one second. Incredible.

Historically, despite less RAM, iPhones have outperformed Samsung smartphones, even with 4GB or less. The new iPhone 12s are anticipated to have to feature 4GB of RAM and the iPhone 12 Pro models are rumored to be equipped with 6GB of RAM. This new ultraviolet technology might be what finally pushes Samsung over the top and changes the equation.

Naturally, you can expect to see this kind of technology in rival smartphone makers popping up in the near future but for now, it appears to be the secret weapon that Samsung has in store for its January product launch.

Overall Design

These two phones are excellent pieces of hardware and will do everything (and more) that you might need a phone to do. The easiest way to decide which route to go is to compare the two side-by-side with the most popular data points.

The Samsung S21 has a larger screen size than the iPhone 12.
The cameras on both devices are comparable (although the S21 Ultra might have some tricks up its sleeve).
The RAM on the Samsung S21 is more than double what the iPhone 12 offers.
The Samsung S21 offers incredible 120Hz screen refresh, far above the iPhone 12.
The prices of both devices are very similar, even as you scale up in storage, features, etc.

It definitely looks like the Samsung S21 is a winner, although it hasn’t yet been released and there could be some kinks that still need to be worked out.

The Verdict

Buying a new smartphone has become a very personal endeavor. We carry these devices with us everywhere, we stare at them for hours each day, and some of us even have minor panic attacks when we think we’ve misplaced them. Smartphones are almost another limb for some of us.

That’s why the decision of which phone to get has to be left up to personal preference and based on the specs that are important to you. If January 2121 seems too far away to wait and you need the new iPhone now, however, you should definitely keep the S21 on your radar for next year’s upgrade.

Why Monitoring The News Helps You Trade Stocks Better

Posted on November 24, 2020 by Christine Brown

The negative connotation that people have with TV and news is not unfounded. There is a lot of misinformation, propaganda, and ‘empty calorie’ content that’s constantly being introduced to watchers. But amongst all this, there are still things that are worth watching the news for. Taking things a notch further and predicting how the stocks will turn out is the sign of a successful trader. Watching things randomly on the TV is not going to be helpful, which is why accurate monitoring is required. We’ll be mentioning a few reasons that make monitoring the news a key player in improving your stocks trading game.

Understanding the News Effect on Wall Street

News isn’t just used for understanding the new trends in a market, but it can be used as an indicator that can actually sway public opinion more than many people think. If stock traders have been expecting a considerable rise in the stocks of a certain company then a rise has been reported, there are two scenarios that are expected to happen. The first one is if the stocks have risen but not to the level that the market was expecting, which will actually cause the stock price to drop a little bit, and traders may wait for its price to reach a lower level before purchasing again. If it has risen to a level that pleased the traders, it may continue rising as investors start purchasing its stocks. News can help traders in picking certain stocks, but they are not the final indicator that should be used to make the final decision. Picking good companies and sticking with them is a good strategy when a trader has faith in the stock they’ve chosen.

Using the Anticipation to Your Favor

Professional traders not only monitor the news, but they try to anticipate them as accurately as possible. Since news outlets use known financial sources in the market, it is possible to stay ahead of other traders who always wait for the news to know what to do. You can use government reports, such as those released by the Bureau of Labor and the US Census Bureau. This process can take some time because you will need to be able to anticipate the news by watching a lot of them and tracing them to their sources. It is much easier to use software that is specifically optimized to help you stay on top of the news. Reviewers of Benzinga Pro swear by the useful tools that most types of traders can make use of on these kinds of platforms. You can utilize software to bring you news from the very same sources that the biggest financial outlets use.

The Impact of Good News and Bad News

The negative news is always an indicator that investors or traders will start selling their stocks before it reaches a non-profitable price for them. Similar to a sinking ship, people gradually start jumping off it unless it is finally miraculously afloat. Stocks aren’t necessarily sinking ships because it’s possible for a stock to easily make a comeback, but plunging down is usually followed by an unfavorable explanation and it’s more than enough for traders to stay away from it. Whether it’s a bad earnings report, a scandal, a shift in the executive hierarchy, political implications, or similar events that translate to potential uncertainty, they can cause a serious decrease in the price of stocks.

Positive news is often a good indicator of a company’s stocks. While it doesn’t always have to mean that the stock price is going to instantly rise, it can indicate good potential in the upcoming days. Individuals are going to hold on to their stocks and new traders will take up interest by purchasing stocks.

Knowing When Bad News is Good News

Good traders know not only the difference between good news and bad news but also when they aren’t being as straightforward as they seem. As a trader, your good news is probably the bad news of other traders. A hurricane can cause a sharp decline in the price of utility stocks, in addition to insurance stocks as well. On the other hand, home improvement and repair services stocks are going to rise for a while. You need to be able to know how to read between the lines to see which stocks are going to rise and which are going to fall instead.

Successful investors are constantly monitoring the news of the world and different industries to gain insight into the right stocks that they can invest in or trade. There is no doubt that this stage comes after being able to read the market carefully and accurately. Give yourself some time to understand the market to be able to analyze the news and use it to your favor.

Top 5 Best Online Businesses to Start during the worldwide lockdown

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Robert Oldman

There have certainly been few other years since 2020 in living memory, with people across the globe having to adjust to previously unfamiliar phrases. Social distancing. Lockdowns. Or new working concepts, like meeting via zoom rather than in person. But this situation hasn’t all been an imposition. Many have taken advantage of the break from the nine-to-five routine to consider other options. The necessity of going online has inspired entrepreneurs to spring up everywhere. Here are five ideas for Internet businesses with terrific potential.

Online dating

It may not be the easiest business to set up, but it certainly has the potential to be the most lucrative. Online dating has taken the world by storm since the first commercial sites were launched a couple of decades ago. The key to making a success out of this venture would be identifying gaps in an overcrowded market. How about mature dating niche? Refer to a review platforms of dating sites for over 50s to get an impression of how typical outlets operate. If you can bring panache, originality, and creativity to this area of dating, perhaps targeting this niche area in a way that introduces a unique twist, it could prove successful. The key ingredients should be well-designed pages, a strong brand, a fully-realized monetizing aspect, and harnessing social media for free advertising.

E-commerce

There are many virtual retail outlets already, with obvious examples like Amazon or eBay. Rather than just digging out the occasional item from the garage or loft to put on eBay auctions, you could strive to make this more of a formal enterprise. Do you have a particular hobby or passion that you could transform, setting up an online shop to attract worldwide customers? All you need is imagination and dedication. Whether you’ve been stashing football programs or collecting DVDs or albums over the years, most of which are gathering dust, if you can put an online shop together with engaging and well-written content, this could grow legs.

Affiliate marketing

The beauty of affiliate marketing is this is an online business where you don’t have to invest in stock or advertising. Becoming an affiliate involves identifying a product that is already being sold, then offering yourself as a third-party platform to shift these products. Services like Amazon are always looking for mini-marketers to collaborate in selling their products on intelligently-designed platforms. Or identify an area you are keen on blogging about anyway, using your expertise to draw in customers. You’ll get a percentage of sales through commission.

Vlogging

Most of us have read headlines about Vloggers or YouTube stars – individuals who have accumulated huge followers simply by discussing particular topics with authority, then plugging products. This is a difficult area to get into, but if you can crack the unique attributes that make Vlogging such a mesmerizing spectator activity, there’s no reason why you couldn’t go on to carve your own slice of this pie. As with any web enterprise, the key is having captivating content. There are little overheads. All that is required is imagination, a degree of charisma, and perhaps some luck, too!

Freelance writing

A huge side-effect of the worldwide lockdown is more and more people going online. New websites are popping up all over the place, but no matter how competently-designed these might be, they will survive or expire solely based on the strength of their content. So sites will always be looking for content providers, and you can charge accordingly. You could easily set up your own freelance writing business when demand gets high enough.

Backing Up Your Data? Here are Your Options

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Charlene Brown

Here’s the thing, if you are using a computer for storing pretty much any sort of information, you must ensure that your data is being safely stored and backed up. This doesn’t mean that you are paranoid or anything like that, just that you are aware that an unexpected event like hard drive failure, a virus, or file corruption could wipe out some really important things.

All of that being said, you really shouldn’t overlook backing up your data, but you should also be aware that there are some dos and don’ts, as well as a lot of different options that can easily get you overwhelmed. That is why, in this article, we are going to explain different options, as well as their pros and cons that are going to make backing up a lot easier.

Cloud Backup

Storing your data in the cloud is pretty much the latest trend when it comes to backup technology, and for good reasons. Data that you store on cloud services is always at the tip of your fingertips, wherever you are, it’s going to be accessible from any device. That is connected to the internet.

There are a lot of benefits that backing up via cloud offers, one of the most prominent ones being accessibility and safety. Most of the cloud backup services are heavily encrypted, offering two-factor authentication as well as usage of the personal key. Another great thing to consider is the fact that having your data on a cloud means that it’s offsite – ensuring that your data doesn’t get lost due to different disasters.

The only downside with online backup is that it tends to be slower, especially if you are backing up a lot of data.

External Hard Drives

External hard drives are one of the most common storage mediums for a long time. These drives are extremely easy to set up, they are relatively cheap, provide multiple different storage size options, and are portable – all of these are great assets. Also, one of the best properties of external hard drives is the fact that they can store a lot, and we mean a lot of data.

However, just as all the hard drives in our computers, they are prone to failure over time and extended use, which is something that you don’t need to worry about if you are backing up on a cloud.

Also, such drives always pose a risk of being lost or damaged, and eventually, they are going to run out of storage space because their size is fixed. External drives, like any type of equipment that is stored on-site, can also be destroyed in a disaster like a power surge, a fire, or a flood.

Network Attached Storage (NAS)

A NAS device utilizes an array of storage drives to create redundancy and, ultimately, larger combined storage space for you to back up your files. A NAS device is connected to the network for shared access between different individuals, which makes it a great option in case you want to share files with different people around you.

The storage drives that are used in NAS are usually sold separately from the device itself, so it may be a bit more costly and inconvenient to set up. However, NAS devices offer better data redundancy, as well as drive failure protection in real-time and performance using RAID configuration.

It should be mentioned though, some NAS manufacturers tend to provide inferior software that can be buggy and just not efficient. This can easily lead to different issues during backup, like storing files with the wrong modification date/time stamp on them, making it harder for you to find what you are looking for afterward.

USB Flash Drives

There are a ton of options out there, and yet, USB flash drives don’t seem to be getting out of fashion even after all these years. This is mostly because, well, they are great at doing what they are intended to do – store and transport data. Even nowadays, some people prefer USB flash drives for storing their most important data.

USB flash drives are portable, inexpensive, and really durable. They are good for transporting your data between different locations manually but efficiently. However, you should have in mind that they are also prone to being lost or stolen, so plan accordingly. It should also be mentioned that they have a low storage capacity when compared to other backup options.

In the end, different people have different preferences, and that is completely fine since there is no one right answer when it comes to things like this. Even if you end up trying different things before settling for the best option, that’s also fine. The only imperative thing is that you take the time to do your research to make as informed a decision as possible.

Where to Start Data Privacy Planning

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Amy Fischer

If you are an organization and you have a lot of data to protect, then you have to implement a data privacy strategy and ensure that your data is secured all the time. This may not necessarily mean that it is an easy task. However, with the correct planning and strategy from the best data securing companies around, you should be assured of the best data protection. Your company should therefore acquire the best data privacy software so that you can rest assured there will be no data breaches.

What Is a Data Privacy Plan?

A data privacy plan is a directive of an organization, and it states how that organization will protect the personal data of its clients and customers. This is more so an internal document that is meant for the consumption of the organization. This is unlike a data privacy policy that is a description of how an organization collects and uses data from external sources.

Steps A Company Needs To Follow When Starting Data Privacy Planning

A data privacy strategy has to be planned for it to be successful. For your company to implement a successful data privacy plan that will work for the long term, here are brief steps that should be followed for this purpose:

1. Gather the support of the upper executives of the company. This issue of data collection and storing cannot work without the right support.

2. A Data Protection Officer (DPO) should be appointed to make the process much formal and smooth. However, this will be guided by the size of your organization.

3. Know the data you need to collect. Once this is clear, a team should be formed to create a data inventory of the company.

4. Know your data requirements. What kind of protection requirements does your data need? What sort of data will the company be storing and processing?

5. Analyze the privacy risks of the data you have. What are its vulnerabilities, threats, and possible impacts of such risks?

6. The next step is creating a Data Privacy Policy. This is a document that has guidelines formulated after you have analyzed all the external and internal factors that can affect the plans, operations, and objectives of the company.

7. Implement the right data privacy controls. Your risks should be organized according to the impact they may have on the company. Set data controls based on this.

8. Initiate data privacy awareness and training for all people involved. Some staff may require advanced training on the handling of certain data. Ensure this is done.

9. The last step is monitoring and compliance with the data. However, data monitoring and privacy is a continuous process and there need not be the last step as such. In this regard, data that is processed and stored by the organization should be checked all the time. Ensure this data is protected all the time and that all people comply with the data requirements.

In conclusion, data issues are legal issues. As such, when handling data privacy management for the company, ensure you are always following the rules that govern data collection, processing, and dissemination.