GTS Solutions Blog

Can’t find your mobile device? If you’ve taken precautions and enabled solutions designed to track the whereabouts of your device, then you’ve got no reason to panic. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, so you’ll want to make sure you activate a phone-finding solution now (while you’ve got your device in your sights).

For an iPhone or Apple Device
If you’re an Apple enthusiast, you can use the Find My iPhone feature to locate any device connected to your Apple account. Log into your iCloud account or download the Find My iPhone app (before you lose your device, of course), which will help you keep track of your devices should you lose them. You can even track where your device is and where it has been. You can even lock the device and send it a message telling whoever finds it how to contact you! 

For an Android Device
Android makes finding your lost device as easy as performing a Google search. If you’re signed into your Google account, and you have your device linked to it, all you have to do is type into the search bar, “Find my Phone.” As long as there’s a device connected to your Google account, you’ll be shown a small map in the search results which shows you where the device is located. You can then proceed to ring the device and find it, if it is turned on and nearby.

For Other Devices
If you lose a more obscure device, you might have a little more trouble locating it. Thanks to a great app called Prey, you can find just about any laptop or smartphone that may be missing. You can install Prey for free on up to three devices, and as long as a thief hasn’t completely wiped your device, you’ll have a decent shot at discovering who has found it. Provided that your device has a Wi-Fi chip, a webcam, and the app installed, Prey can take a picture of whoever has found the device as well as where it is located.

Any devices that have Prey installed on them will automatically issue a report to you every so often, starting at 20 minutes. This can tell you exactly what’s happening with your device. This includes webcam snapshots, desktop captures, program installations, changed files, and so much more. Of course, if you think that maybe someone has just found your device and hasn’t stolen it, you have the option of letting them know how to contact you through various methods. Worst case scenario, you can lock it or remotely wipe it to secure any data located on it.

For more great tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your technology, subscribe to GTSS’s blog.

By now you’ve heard of self-driving cars insofar that you understand that there are engineers from all over the United States and abroad working with AI to develop systems that can create safer traffic conditions and cut down on emissions with efficiency. But what you may not know is that there are many drivers concerned at the development and deployment of these autonomous systems.

Data breaches are common problems for businesses of all shapes and sizes. In fact, they often have huge repercussions that aren’t initially seen in the heat of the moment. How can you make sure that a data breach won’t negatively impact your business, even well after you’ve fixed the initial problem?

Fans of Google Chrome are familiar with using Incognito mode to cover their tracks and keep their Internet browsing private. Although, one downside of Incognito mode is that it disables your browser’s extensions by default. If this has been an annoyance for you, then you’ll be pleased to learn that switching on your extensions for Incognito Mode is easy to do.

Keeping your workers as productive as possible is a challenge for every employer. According to a recent study by the Harvard Business Review, there is one easy that you can increase productivity: By keeping a productive worker in close proximity to other workers.

An internal IT department serves two primary purposes for businesses. The first is to keep an eye on your technology problems and resolve them. The second is to plan for the future and implement new strategies that will help your organization function more effectively. The problem for the average small business is that their IT department often doesn’t have the luxury of performing both of these tasks.

Full disclosure: we don’t recommend doing anything important, or really anything at all, on a public computer. However, we understand that sometimes life works out in an unideal fashion, and sometimes you can be stuck doing something you shouldn’t, and otherwise wouldn’t. Even in these cases, there are steps you can take to preserve your security.

Depending on how long you’ve had your current workstation, you might start to see performance problems. Eventually, you’ll start to see issues that could cause downtime and lead to wasted assets. Therefore, you need to have a plan in order to replace your hardware before it fails. What’s the best way to do this without breaking your budget?

How many times has this happened to you: you’ve walked back to your home or work PC after taking a break, only to find that Windows 10 installed new updates and automatically restarted? Thanks to Windows 10’s notoriously aggressive update behavior, any work that wasn’t saved was lost forever. It can be very frustrating to lose a project that you’ve spent hours on, through no fault of your own. Luckily, there are steps you can take to easily create a restart schedule.

Making sure that your company’s software solutions are up-to-date is something that should take priority, but it’s a chore that’s difficult to perform without a little help. How can you make sure that security patches and updates are always implemented, without sacrificing all of the time and effort required to do so? Even if you don’t think you need them, we promise that they are worth your time--or that of your IT staff.

When you’re emotionally invested in something, there’s a better chance that you will enjoy it and find reason to do it. This is why marketers always attempt to use a good old tug-at-the-heartstrings tactic, as they know that if they can get their audience invested on an emotional level, they’ll be more willing to take the dive and try something new. The same tactic can be used to turn good employees into great employees.

When it comes to Android mobile OS-run smartphones, consumers may wonder where the value is when they see so many name brands charging premium prices for their flagship devices. Two of the most popular devices, the Google Pixel and the Samsung Galaxy s7, seem to be in a league of their own in the Android market. Today we do a brief comparison:

Do you know what today is? It’s National Clean Out Your Computer Day! This means that there is no time like the present to make sure that you’re taking good care of your business’s technology assets. In honor of this day, we’ll discuss ways in which you can take better care of your technology.

It’s every business owner’s worst nightmare; they wake up to find out that their entire data infrastructure has been wiped out by some unexpected natural disaster or hacking attack. The only way to guarantee that your business’s future remains intact is to have some sort of data backup and recovery system, just in case of the worst.

Most of the time, you don’t care about how long it takes to charge your device’s battery--that is, until you find yourself in a bind and need a full charge ASAP! It’s in a moment like this when you frantically ask the question, “Is there any way to make this battery charge any faster!?” Fortunately, there is.

Who manages the relationships that your organization has with its various vendors? Do you have someone who specifically handles this role, or is it pushed onto your already-full schedule? If this is something that takes up a significant portion of your day, vendor management (though necessary) can become a detriment. Thankfully, there is a better way to handle your vendor relationships, and it doesn’t involve stretching yourself thin.

By now you’ve surely heard about the benefits of cloud computing, but a new survey by TSO Logic might be just the proof you need to make the leap to the cloud. The survey analyzed 10,000 physical servers and 25,000 virtual machines, and the results are quite revealing!

You might wish that your employees know more about IT and its inner workings, and you’re not alone. SMBs often suffer from a lack of IT talent, and they might try to supplement this lack of proficiency by training employees on how to do basic computer tasks required to work effectively. Thankfully, you don’t have to rely on just your knowledge and that of your employees when it comes to maintaining your technology.

The challenge for business owners is that there are so many different types of online threats, it borders on impossible to protect themselves from all of them. All of these threats hold limitless possibility to ruin your organization’s operations, either short-term or long-term. One of the most common threats out there is called a rootkit hack, and it’s one that you certainly don’t want to mess around with.

As a business, you focus on providing a specific good or service to your area. This means spending a considerable amount of time trying to make your organization the go-to SMB for that particular service. All organizations specialize in a certain craft, but sometimes their skills may fall short of their needs in areas that lay outside this expertise. Outsourcing is a simple way for businesses to leverage skills that aren’t part of their expertise without taking the time to learn the skill themselves, and it’s an invaluable part of any business owner’s strategy.