OnSite I.T. Blog

If you’ve ever looked at your phone—or your laptop, or whatever allegedly “smart” device you happened to be using—and wished that things were how they used to be, you certainly aren’t alone. You aren’t imagining things, either… this perception of the products and services we rely on getting worse over time is widespread enough to have its own term, which has expanded beyond its social media-specific origins to all technologies, regardless of whether it's hardware or software. This term was actually named to be 2023’s Word of the Year (per the American Dialect Society), beating “AI” in relevance.

That word? Enshittification, as coined by tech critic and author Cory Doctorow. Let’s explore the concept and what it inevitably leads to.

Let me ask you something: say you had promised to protect someone, keeping them safe and healthy. Would you want them to actively partake in risky—and in many cases, completely avoidable—situations? Of course not. So, why would a business’ insurance provider want to provide coverage if that business did nothing to prevent a cybersecurity event?

They wouldn’t… and as a result, many providers are establishing minimum safeguards and compliance requirements to help protect themselves. Let’s go over what these safeguards are so that your safety nets will be there when you need them.

Two things are invariably true in the modern business landscape: technology will play an integral role in operations, and obtaining this technology will require a relationship with vendors and service providers. As such, anyone seeking to run a business successfully must interact with these external parties and enter into business contracts.

This needs to be handled carefully, so while we aren’t offering legal advice, you should follow a few practices before and during the negotiation of an IT contract.

Running a business is like juggling flaming torches while riding a unicycle, blindfolded. You’ve got employees, customers, operations, and, of course, vendors. Vendors keep the gears turning, but if you’re not careful, those relationships can turn into a never-ending headache that eats up your time, money, and possibly your sanity. So how do you make sure your vendors work for you, rather than the other way around? Here’s how to get the most out of them without losing your mind.

The Internet of Things, or IoT for short, showcases just how much a little bit of Internet connectivity can do to help make certain devices much more interesting and useful, but at the same time, it also has brought about a considerable security concern. How are you preventing these devices from ravaging your network security, and what can you do to stop it from putting your company at risk?

One of the leading printer manufacturers, HP, has been actively attempting to disable any ink cartridges that they didn’t produce, which is causing some strife among users of the products. Let’s take a look at what this means for users and for businesses that rely on HP printers. 

Based on how the rest of the year has gone, it should come as no surprise that 2020 has come to an end with the news that the United States was targeted in the largest cyberespionage attack ever. Let’s go into what this attack signifies, and what we should all take away from it.

Every so often, you may encounter a need for experience that nobody you currently employ actually has. While you could hire an employee with the desired skills, there’s no guarantee that you could find one in a timely fashion - or that they’d be a good fit. So, for the third part of our series on a managed service provider’s added value, we’re examining their consulting services.