SHOULD I PURCHASE A SERVER? – MAINTAINING A SERVER IS LIKE OWNING A POOL

Purchasing and maintaining your own sever is akin to owning and cleaning your own pool. Imagine you just bought a new house with a beautiful sparkling pool in the beginning of summer.  The weather is perfect, it’s fun learning about how to maintain the proper chemicals, and it just takes a little time each week.  After a few weeks algae starts to show up, and you look into what is causing the problem and buy some special product to nip it in the bud.  It looks better for a while, but your algae keeps creeping back up.  The weather gets hotter and a little more uncomfortable, and you neglect to do your regular chemical adjustment.  Before you know it, the algae is out of control and you have to bring in a professional to clean everything out.

You realize that since the newness has worn off, taking care of the pool isn’t really fun, it’s just another chore and you would rather not work on your weekend off, especially after you realize you don’t really know what you are doing. When you look at all of the expenses of purchasing cleaning tools, and all of the chemicals, plus emergency service, you aren’t really saving money. Not to mention, you’re not getting paid for this added labor and headache.  There are some people that maintain lovely pools by themselves, but they really know what they are doing, and they truly are engaged and enjoy working on their system.

The same thing goes for maintaining your own server, if you are not already computer savvy and have day dreams about owning your own server, this is not a safe bet for you.  Servers require regular maintenance, updates and backups, that if not done regularly can lead to serious problems, which costs an arm and a leg to get fixed in the long run.  There are also quite a few hidden fees, not just the price of the server.  Small to medium sized companies with their own servers, are the easiest to switch over to hosting, because they understand the hassle of a server, and hosting is actually cheap compared to what they have been paying.
Make the safe bet with virtually no startup costs and try out hosting today.  You can always cancel you service and get your money back if you are dissatisfied for any reason.  Email support@cloudtopoffice.com or give us a call at (866)710-4228.

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NEVER OUTSOURCING TO ROBOTS

Here is an interesting article I found about outsourced jobs moving from foreign countries to automated services from Motherboard.vice.com.

Have you ever really been helped by a robot when you need customer service?  I find them about as frustrating as self check out at the store.

Never fear, at Tandem CloudTop, you will always receive help from a real person from our company, and not by someone in another country or a robot, no matter how convincing they seem to get.

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THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN QUICKBOOKS ONLINE AND QUICKBOOKS CLOUD HOSTING

QuickBooks Online is similar to QuickBooks in a Cloud Hosted Environment because both are accessible anywhere, anytime and on almost any internet connected device. However, beyond these few similarities, they are quite distinct.
QuickBooks Online is for very basic entry-level businesses and individuals who want access to QuickBooks from their browser. There are limited capabilities within QuickBooks Online and add-ons to the program are not available. You are not currently able to import data from previous versions of QuickBooks, Excel, Quicken or MS Office into QB Online. You can only view a single window at a time and are not able to do side-by-side comparisons of reports as you can with the desktop version. The lack of features for QB Online leads to basic bookkeeping options, but if your company is just starting out and you are very price conscious, then this might be a perfect fit for your company.  One benefit of QB Online is that it is updated automatically, so that you no longer have to purchase a newer version.
If you are happy with your current version of QuickBooks, but are looking to have remote access, Cloud Hosting is a great option because you don’t have to learn new software, and all of your information can be easily transferred to your virtual desktop. Cloud Hosted QuickBooks, through a service provider, allows you to have the full desktop product, and you can utilize Microsoft Office on your virtual desktop, enabling your business to have information flow automatically between employees.  You will have the benefits of added security and remote servers so that none of your information will be lost in case of a disaster. Backups are performed nightly to ensure there is no loss of data.
For more information email support@cloudtopoffice.com or give us a call at (866)710-4228.

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WHAT IF YOUR IT GUY SUDDENLY QUITS? – ARE YOU PREPARED?

Most businesses wouldn’t want to entertain the idea of their IT guy suddenly quitting. The reality is that you never know when something could happen to leave the owner of the company needing to answer IT questions that only the computer guy could answer.  Ask yourself the following questions to see if you are prepared for the loss of a very important employee.
Do you have written network documentation about your computer network? – What software licenses do you own? What are the critical administrator passwords to your systems and devices? How is your computer network structured? What hardware do you own and when do your equipment warranties expire? Are there cloud vendors for email, online storage, hosted line of business applications, etc. that you don’t currently have? You should NEVER allow a single IT person or company keep this information under their full control over your network and company.
Do you know if your backup files are being stored properly, and where? If you are like most business owners, you’re too busy dealing with the “crisis of the day” to think about system backups and probably leave tasks to your internal expert. This detail is easy to overlook, but very important to have written down and easy to access.
Do you have a written plan for restoring your network fast in the case of a disaster? If you don’t have a fully tested disaster recovery plan for your office, you should.
Do you know where all of your software is stored? Bad things can happen to computers and servers, and the situation can be made worse if you are not prepared. Taking a minute to organize and store your software in a secure place can save you a considerable chunk of money in the event that you need to restore a program on your systems. If you don’t have access to the software or don’t know where it is located,you might be forced to buy the software again.
Do you know what routine maintenance is being done on your network?The very idea of learning about and keeping track of all the servers, workstations, and peripherals on your network is quite mundane, but it is important information to maintain.
Do you know how to protect yourself from a security breach if your in-house computer expert leaves? What happens if your expert splits with no warning AND has access to your company’s network? As soon as humanly possible, you should disable his or her access, including remote access to your network and all cloud based applications.
Make sure that you have all the answers to these important questions to keep your company up and running even without your key expert on hand. Tandem CloudTop can help with many of these safeguards, rather than leaving all of your important information in one person’s hands.  Call for more information 866-710-4228 or email support@cloudtopoffice.com.

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IT’S HURRICANE SEASON – ARE YOUR ELECTRONICS PREPARED?

Now that you’ve gotten your non-perishable food, water and first aid kit ready for hurricane season, don’t forget to safeguard your electronics!
Make sure and keep your devices charged and extra batteries handy.  You should also backup any electronic devices.
Data should be stored at an off-site location so that it can be recovered if it is exposed to physical elements, like high winds, falling debris, or rising water, during a hurricane.
Businesses should also back up their information daily to a remote site, not only for hurricanes, but for everyday mishaps that can happen. If you don’t trust yourself in doing these daily tasks, you should definitely look into hiring a service to help you with backups and storing your data safely and securely.
Give Tandem CloudTop a call (866)710-4228 for more information or send an email to support@cloudtopoffice.com

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