OnSite I.T. Blog

Good luck going about your day without hearing how AI is changing the workplace as we know it; let alone running a business without considering its useful applications. While you might feel pressured to adopt AI, we want to urge you to think before you act. Doing so could prevent you from investing money into a solution that doesn’t help your business in the slightest.

To find out if AI is an appropriate next step for your business, consider these steps:

Your business has a specific goal in mind, whether that’s providing customers with a product or providing them with a service. On the back end of that goal is a lot of administrative work, the stuff that happens behind the scenes to facilitate that goal. Artificial intelligence is a tool that can help your business be more efficient and effective with this behind-the-scenes work, and we’ll show you how.

Whatever type of business you operate, you likely do so with the intention of assisting your clients, customers, or patrons with a specific goal. It isn’t as though you started a business because you wanted to do all the administrative work… right?

Fortunately, modern technology offers a way out, especially now that artificial intelligence is readily available. Let’s go over three ways that AI could help do the busy work on your behalf, and touch on just how much it could wind up saving you.

Implementing cool new technology solutions is fun and all… until you realize that there’s a lot of work involved in it. Your employees, for example, might even resist the change that it brings. How is your business going to address these challenges in a way that is productive for not just your employees, but for your entire organization? That’s what we want to discuss today.

It's a fact that computers generate heat. From the laptop fan whirring away on your desk to the massive arrays of servers powering cloud computing and AI, these machines require cooling to function optimally. As our reliance on the cloud expands, however, the sheer scale of this cooling requirement is transforming into a significant environmental and financial burden.

As is the case with most things, the past few years have seen significant changes in entertainment, thanks to the development of technology. We have literally gone from using extremely sensitive and delicate film to capture footage, manually trimming it on flatbed editors in dark rooms, to capturing, storing, editing, and displaying it digitally.

Let’s explore how the nature of entertainment has shifted as technology has developed over time.

Artificial intelligence is becoming ubiquitous in the business technology sector and for good reason. It’s allowing small and medium-sized businesses to do more and compete with businesses that were previously just ahead of them.

Today, we want to go over some (reasonably) easy ways you can use AI in your IT operations to make your business more efficient.

If you’re a smart manager, you're always looking for ways to optimize spending and enhance your organization’s ability to be efficient. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) isn't just a trendy tech term; it's a strategic financial move that can significantly impact your bottom line. Today, we get into how VoIP translates to real cost savings.

Water cooling is a common method of keeping computing hardware at reasonable temperatures, particularly for gaming PCs, data centers, and similar high-demand applications. What if, however, a business used a similar method to keep their entire building climate-controlled?

Microsoft intends to do so in some new data centers, as many residences have begun implementing a version of this system.

You may remember the hubbub and hullabaloo that ensued when Josh Allen, a digital artist, won first place at the 2022 Colorado State Fair’s Fine Arts Competition in the Digital Arts/Digitally Manipulated Photography contest with an image—"Théâtre D'opéra Spatial"—that he had created using AI. Allen continues defending his work, now butting heads with the Copyright Office.

The concept of a four-day-long workweek is one of the latest trends that businesses of all shapes and sizes are pondering. It has been touted to have significant benefits for both their operations and the employees who carry them out. However, is the “compressed” workweek the route your business should go?

Well, as is so often the answer, that depends. Let’s examine the concept of a compressed workweek and its application more closely.

Technology is usually at the forefront of any major shift in a business’ operations to at least some degree. One interesting technology that has emerged in certain workplaces is augmented reality, or AR for short. Today, we’re considering specific instances where a business can implement AR to surprising benefits.

When we call ourselves a managed service provider (MSP), it still isn’t common knowledge what we mean by that. Perhaps the simplest way to describe our role is to call us an outsourced IT support provider, but even this definition falls short of the value we can offer. To remedy this, we wanted to review what one of our clients expects (and rightly so) to receive from a partnership with us.

The modern business landscape is fueled, in large part, by something we refer to as professional services. This typically includes any business model with trained professionals at the center of the business. In today’s economy, this can include tradesmen, but typically, it means consultants, lawyers, agents, and other professionals essential to moving business forward. Today, we thought we would briefly go into some of the technologies that professional services depend on. 

The definition of sustainability, according to the United Nations, is “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Originally coined in 1987, this definition has fueled businesses' efforts to work toward their own versions of sustainability, as per their service models. Let’s look at some ways you can make your own operations more sustainable.

Technology can bring many dynamic benefits to an organization, but it can also derail its successful trajectory. One of the significant considerations that must be made is whether the technology your organization is implementing fits your business needs. Today, we will describe how having a knowledgeable perspective can help you avoid making investments that may not produce the rapid returns that most small businesses require. 

Are you familiar with the works of Isaac Asimov? The author wrote a short story called “Runaround” in 1942, and it introduced the idea of the Three Laws of Robotics, or laws that all of the robots in his Robots series must follow. This stranger-than-reality concept is being used today by Google, which has announced a set of safeguards partially inspired by these three laws to help it control future AI-powered machines.

As the popularity of blockchain technology continues to rise, it's essential to explore its functionality and understand why it deserves attention. While commonly portrayed as a dubious tool associated with cryptocurrencies and scams, the fundamental nature of blockchain is far from nefarious. In reality, its decentralized and transparent attributes make it well-suited for various tasks, and we'll describe how it can be used for more than cryptocurrency below.

These days, it feels like things change quickly and without warning, but there are certainly still some parts of the holiday season that retain some of the good, old-fashioned traditions of yesteryear. While the holiday season is more commercialized than ever, technology has made it more viable to spend these times of laughter, leisure, and cheer with loved ones, even if you’re far apart physically.

AI might feel like a technology perfectly at home in the world of science fiction, but the truth is that most of its uses are not nearly as interesting or fun. Take, for example, Operation Green Light, an initiative from Google that aims to better society through examining AI for traffic control and its impact on the environment.