Applied Tech and its employees are always on the move and we wanted our readers to know what we’ve been up to! Help us give some well-deserving props to the following employees in their recent accomplishments!

 

 

 

Joe Van Maldegiam (Madison office) – Congratulations to Joe who passed the 10.7 Lion Support Essentials Exam! With this passing Joe is now an Apple® 10.7 certified support specialist.
 

Jackie Hahn (Madison Office) – Give it up for Jackie for winning the “Admin Professional of the Year” award through the EZ Office Products contest. Jackie competed against other area professionals and earned the most votes (along with some well-deserved praises), crowning her the winner. Kudos to you, Jackie; you deserved it!

Julie Sheldon (Madison office) – This is it folks. The Man & Woman of the Year campaign is coming to a close at the end of the month. Julie has been working tirelessly to raise funds for cancer research, patient support, and financial aid for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. On June 1, one man and one woman will be crowned Man/Woman of the Year based on the number of votes each candidate bring in (1 dollar = 1 vote). To help Julie reach her goal, please consider a donation. No amount is too small and not only is it tax-deductible, it makes a difference!

Donating is simple, and can be done in the following ways:
• You can donate online until noon on May 30th at http://wi.mwoycc.llsevent.org/juliesheldon
• Or mail a check, payable to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, to 1201 N. Windsor Ave, Cottage Grove, WI 53527. (Be sure to mail for arrival before May 30)

Applied Tech and its employees are always on the move and we wanted our readers to know what we’ve been up to!  Help us give some well-deserving props to the following employees in their recent accomplishments!

Ahren Groshek (Stevens Point office) – Ahren passed the 70-647 Pro: Windows Server 2008, Enterprise Administrator exam from Microsoft, earning him the Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Enterprise Administrator certification.  Great job, Ahren!!

Julie Sheldon (Madison office) – As a candidate for the Woman of the Year campaign for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), Julie has been relentlessly working on planning fundraising events and raising money.  See our blog article for more info.  Each dollar donated counts as a “vote” for Julie.  All proceeds go to LLS.  Please help Julie reach her goal by attending an event or donating whatever you can spare.  Any bit helps and is greatly appreciated.  http://wi.mwoycc.llsevent.org/juliesheldon

 

March 2012 – Applied Tech has been recognized as a national leader in Managed Services by MSPmentor.  Managed Services providers across the world are measured by overall managed services revenue and growth for fiscal year 2011.

 Applied Tech is one of two Wisconsin-based ICT firms to make the cut.  “Our team has been offering managed services since 2005, before many companies even though about such a solution”, said President Kurt Sippel.  “We’re proud of what we have built and it’s an honor to be recognized”.

 As a managed services provider (MSP), Applied Tech offers network monitoring, help desk support, and planning of IT environments for businesses through its TechCare® Managed Services offering.  Customers receive access to experienced, efficient helpdesk technicians over the phone, remotely, or onsite as well as CIO services from our account managers.

MSPmentor is the ultimate guide to managed services and the leading global destination for managed service providers.  For more information, please visit www.mspmentor.net.

Heard of BYOD, or "bring your own device", to work before? More and more companies are letting or even asking their employees to bring their phones or laptops to work. There are obvious benefits, but also dangers that may not be as obvious. Read on to find out what they are.

You may have noticed more and more of your employees or colleagues bringing their own computing devices to work—be it their mobile phone, tablet, or laptop. Or perhaps in your company or in other companies you may have seen, they have let people decide which device they prefer because they are used to it at home. You may not realize it, but this is all part of a large trend called the "consumerization" of IT, in which the influence of consumer technology is being increasingly felt in the workplace. With the wide availability of cheap but powerful mobile devices and online services, a growing number of people are being exposed to the latest technology at home first—adopting them at a rate faster than most businesses are able to manage. This flips on its head the old paradigm in which traditionally new technologies would be rolled out to businesses first, before they would find their way to consumers.

This trend, plus the increasing sophistication of young workers today and their frustration with the tools available to them at the office, is pushing some companies to adopt a "bring your own device" or BYOD policy at work. They are not alone. According to research by technology analyst group Gartner, end users, not the IT department, will soon be responsible for 50 percent of business IT procurement decisions—ultimately bringing and running their own systems on company networks. Meanwhile, according to management consultants Accenture, around one-third of today's younger generation of workers (a group called "millenials") not only wants to use the computer of their choice at work, but also wants control of the applications they use too.

The benefits companies cite to adopting a BYOD policy are many, among them:

• Savings on capital expenses and training costs in using company equipment—compensating employees instead via other means such as flexible work hours, subsidized purchases, insurance, and other benefits.
• Less management headache—effectively letting employees decide what to use releases the company from some overhead and management responsibilities.
• Improved employee satisfaction—by giving employees the freedom to use devices and applications that they prefer.

However, before you consider letting employees bring their own personal technology to the work place, be aware that there are also disadvantages, and sometimes very real dangers in doing so. These include:

• Non-standardization of hardware, operating systems, and applications. If your business operations require that some equipment is integrated with others, then BYOD can in the long run actually increase IT management costs and decrease efficiency.
• Exposing your network to malware or security vulnerabilities and breaches. When your employees bring their own devices to work, you lose important control over their security. Consumer devices often don't employ comparable bullet-proof security technologies mandated by businesses.
• Leakage of confidential or proprietary information. Employees will naturally do what they want with the data on their devices, even if it doesn't belong to them, or it's against company policies. Employees can also lose precious company data when they misplace or damage their personal devices.
• Lower economies of scale in procurement. Essentially because everyone is buying devices on their own, you miss out on the chance to consolidate purchases and lower purchase costs for everybody.

Have you adopted a BYOD policy at work? Thinking about it? Worried about this trend? If you need to understand BYOD better so you can define a policy for your staff, contact us and see how we can help.

While there are a lot of free tools, applications, and software available on the Internet, it can be a chore sorting out the good from the bad. To make things easier for you, here are a few handy tools you can use to boost productivity while saving on costs.

It is a constant challenge for small businesses to meet ever-changing and ever-evolving IT requirements while balancing a budget and keeping costs reasonable. And with software applications being one of the major factors that contribute to IT maintenance costs, it is always welcome news to come across free tools that work well and efficiently despite the lack of a price tag.

ThinkFree Online Office One of these applications is ThinkFree Online Office, which is a cloud application that enables you to create and edit documents in common formats. It also comes with free 1GB of storage and allows you to work from anywhere, since the documents are stored online. And with its own app for Android users, ThinkFree is particularly advantageous to people who need to work on the go.

ReqMan Another free cloud-based application that can prove useful is ReqMan, an online project management tool. You can use this to manage and track your different projects using various templates the service provides. And since it's in the cloud, mobile personnel and staff who are given access to your ReqMan account can work even when they're out of the office.

Gliffy Gliffy is a free tool that you can use to create all sorts of technical illustrations – diagrams, floor plans, flowcharts, and more. The basic plan is free, but you also have the option to subscribe to their more fully featured plans for a minimal fee.

ScheduleOnce For managing schedules, calendars, and the like, ScheduleOnce allows you to keep better track of all your appointments, meetings, and deadlines through a single tool. It integrates with your calendar on Google, and then allows other people to see your open times when they can schedule a meeting with you. Think of it as a one-stop-shop for your scheduling needs.

If you want to know more about these tools and how you can best utilize them, please feel free to contact us. We’ll be happy to guide you and help you make the most out of these types of applications to improve your efficiency and bottom line.