Managed IT Force Blog

Managed IT Force provides purposeful and powerful IT management and support services to small and medium organizations in the Pittsburgh Area. Our clients enjoy world-class service and reliability for a predictable low fixed fee.

Why Consulting a Security Professional is the Right Call for Your SMB

Why Consulting a Security Professional is the Right Call for Your SMB

If you or your business are worried about cybersecurity, we’d like to say, “Congratulations, you get it!” Too many people fail to take cybersecurity seriously, and with hackers and data breaches making headlines worldwide, you cannot underestimate them. Today, we want to cover how a cybersecurity consultant can save you time, money, and stress over your security systems.

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Stuck on a Problem? Just Step Away (Seriously, Take a Break)

Stuck on a Problem? Just Step Away (Seriously, Take a Break)

Sometimes problem solving requires you to step away and think about the issue at hand. Consider any great strategist out there and you’ll understand that it takes time and calculation to make moves that will benefit you now and in the future. Today, we’ll explore how you can be more productive through strategic pausing.

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How to Prioritize Individual Data Privacy in a World Where It’s Not Respected

How to Prioritize Individual Data Privacy in a World Where It’s Not Respected

How seriously does your business take data privacy? Can you back up your answer with concrete examples of what you do to prioritize that notion? Today, we face a serious threat to both individual and consumer data privacy, so we want to take the time to cover how you can make data privacy a priority in your own life.

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How to Use Patience for Productivity

How to Use Patience for Productivity

Spoiler alert: a business that lacks productivity is unlikely to see any amount of success. One of the best ways to ensure your productivity is to practice patience. How can patience improve your productivity?

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This NIST-Supported Cybersecurity Framework has Robust Benefits

This NIST-Supported Cybersecurity Framework has Robust Benefits

A well-structured framework is essential for establishing effective, consistent policies and strategies. This applies to many areas—including network security. Today, we’re diving into the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity framework, which outlines steps to help safeguard your business.

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Four Signs You Have a Phishing Attack on Your Hands

Four Signs You Have a Phishing Attack on Your Hands

There’s never been a more dangerous time to run a business. Okay, maybe that’s not necessarily true, but hear me out. With digital technology taking on a greater importance for businesses than ever before, companies have to contend with countless threats—including the ever-popular phishing scams—regardless of their geographical location.

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Subscriptions Need to Be Easy to Cancel, Per the FTC

Subscriptions Need to Be Easy to Cancel, Per the FTC

It isn’t rare for people to subscribe to things and only stay subscribed because the cancellation process is so challenging and inconvenient. However, the Federal Trade Commission is looking to stop this, adopting a rule that eliminates the capability for businesses to put hurdles in front of cancellation processes.

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What is Zero-Trust, and How Can My Business Achieve It?

What is Zero-Trust, and How Can My Business Achieve It?

Let me ask you something: would you trust a bank that locked its doors for the night but left all its cash in a big pile in the middle of the floor? Probably not—after all, if someone managed to get through the doors, nothing would stop them from helping themselves to the funds inside.

This is effectively how cybersecurity once worked, with the presumption that if someone had access to a network, they had permission to access any data on it. Fortunately, many businesses have made the switch to a better approach, known as zero-trust security.

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Fight Back Against Downtime with Proactive Maintenance

Fight Back Against Downtime with Proactive Maintenance

It’s natural for businesses to rely on their tools, like IT, to achieve success, but if you don’t take care of your systems, it could lead to downtime. You can bypass many of these challenges with the right approach to technology maintenance. We want to highlight some of the proactive methods you can use to keep downtime to a minimum.

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Keep Your Business Functional While Moving Your Office

Keep Your Business Functional While Moving Your Office

Moving is already difficult, but when you factor in your business’ IT, it becomes twice as frustrating and time-consuming. You can make it easier by preparing for the job ahead of time. Today, we want to cover what you can do to prepare for a business IT move well ahead of the scheduled date.

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Do These 5 Things to Decrease Your Network Bottlenecks

Do These 5 Things to Decrease Your Network Bottlenecks

A business experiencing a network bottleneck is having a bad day, especially since the ability to share data is so important to many industries today. That said, today’s resource-intensive technologies can easily eat through an organization’s bandwidth and create these kinds of network slowdowns.

Let’s talk about what can be done to reduce these bottlenecks, if not eliminate them outright.

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Are You Doing Enough to Prevent Risk? (Probably Not)

Are You Doing Enough to Prevent Risk? (Probably Not)

There are plenty of risks that today’s businesses regularly deal with, particularly in terms of cybersecurity. This year, a panel of experts shared some human risk management insights at the Cybsafe Impact 2024 USA conference. Let’s review some of the topics they touched on.

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You Want IT and Security Partnering Up… Here’s How to Make It Happen

You Want IT and Security Partnering Up… Here’s How to Make It Happen

It should come as no surprise that nowadays, a business’ information technology and security precautions are frequently tied closely together—and wisely so. Not only can today’s technology greatly augment the security a business can defend itself with, but advanced security is needed to protect the critical IT that modern businesses rely on to function.

This makes it critical that these two aspects of your business work together, so let’s go over some ways to ensure they can do so optimally.

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Cybersecurity Isn’t a Product, It’s a Strategy

Cybersecurity Isn’t a Product, It’s a Strategy

Modern businesses—just like yours—cannot and should not operate without robust cybersecurity protections. This is a point we will emphasize at every opportunity. Let’s explore why security is so crucial and what steps you need to take to safeguard your business.

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It’s Important to Know When to Cut Your Business’ Losses

It’s Important to Know When to Cut Your Business’ Losses

“Quit.” The q-word is (at least, in the business setting) one of the worst four-letter words someone can use… usually. In the context you probably first thought of, yes, but there are plenty of times that quitting can directly benefit your operations.

For instance, let’s say you have a project that is eating all of your resources, with no real returns in sight. What do you do then?

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Prepare for the Worst so It Doesn't Sink Your Business

Prepare for the Worst so It Doesn't Sink Your Business

A disaster can strike when you least expect it. It doesn’t matter how small or large your business is; there is always the possibility that your company could have to deal with the technological fallout of a disaster. Here are four ways you can prepare for that inevitable day.

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You Need Your Business’ IT to Match Your Business’ Size

You Need Your Business’ IT to Match Your Business’ Size

Technology is an essential part of most business operations nowadays, regardless of the size of the business… and how that size may change over time. As such, it is essential that the infrastructure that supports this IT can adapt to these swells and declines.

Let’s discuss why it is so important that your IT infrastructure fits your business and a few best practices for tailoring it.

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Productivity is Great… Here’s How to Encourage It

Productivity is Great… Here’s How to Encourage It

Productivity is extremely important for your business' ability to generate revenue and maintain consistent performance. Interestingly, many businesses face similar productivity challenges over time. What can small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) do to improve productivity when it starts to decline? Let's take a look at some strategies to keep productivity high. 

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Tip of the Week: Zip and Unzip Compressed Files

Tip of the Week: Zip and Unzip Compressed Files

Have you ever seen the file types that look like normal folders, but they have a zipper on the icon? These are ZIP files, and they are helpful for a variety of reasons. We’re sure you have encountered zipped files throughout your time using technology, and today, we want to demystify them a little bit and show you how to use them effectively.

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Five Password Best Practices You Must Keep in Mind for 2024

Five Password Best Practices You Must Keep in Mind for 2024

Passwords have long been one of the central pillars of account security on the Internet. Combined with a username, they make up the foundation of most login systems. Because of this, they are a hot commodity for hackers who want to steal credentials and infiltrate accounts or networks. In recent years, however, other security measures have exposed the weakness of poor passwords for security, leading to the adoption of other measures.

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