Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Professional Computer Consulting Saves Time and Money

Nowadays businesses cannot run without technology.  Business comes to a startling halt when software or program failures occur.  When technology goes awry it affects day to day business.  Most companies can’t afford the costs associated with downtime but also can’t absorb the expense of having an IT specialist on their payroll to fix issues with technology as they arise.  A middle ground is reached through contract services in the form of managed IT.

Computer consultants are a precious commodity for businesses of all sizes. IT consultants are able to contract with a number of companies to basically be on call for a flat monthly service fee or hourly rate depending on the option that best fits your company’s IT needs.  Some IT companies specializing in only one service whereas others venture into the tech world as a whole.  Companies, such as Creative Programs and Systems offer clients a variety of services from website design to computer consulting which allows for an all-inclusive approach to IT services.

Hiring an IT consultant can save your company quite a bit of time and money in a variety of ways.  For one there is no need for training or continued education to keep employees up to date with the latest technological advancements.  There isn’t a need to pay employees overtime to work on computer issues after business hours or benefits which helps save on overhead expenses.  Contracted services also don’t require paid sick time, vacation, or the expense of recruiting and training new employees when staff turns over.

Hiring IT consulting services is a win/win for business owners as well.  From computer consultants, professionals can also learn how to more effectively run their business as those experts have picked up many new tricks of the trade from working with numerous companies over the years.  A more efficiently run business will earn more money with less effort, which is helpful to those who are trying to find time to expand their services and grow their businesses.
Business owners who hire computer consultants will find that they are spending twenty-five to fifty percent less than they would if they hired their own on staff IT specialist.  Computer consultant services are available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, that is a great deal for any business.  With this comes computer maintenance services, changes with websites, solving emergencies to eliminate downtime, and more.

By hiring computer consultant’s business owners and employees alike can focus more on everyday tasks rather than dealing with technological issues.  Instead they can simply pick up the phone and make a call or send an email regarding the issues that are occurring, and a consultant will either remote in to your network or go on-site to ensure your problem is quickly taken care of.
Managed IT services not only save time but also money while making life simpler.  Often in business the simple solution costs more, however in the case of computer consulting, it is in fact the most economical option.

Learn more about Creative Programs and Systems, CPS, and the IT solutions they provide including IT consulting, computer consulting, network consulting, networking, server installation, IT disaster recovery, computer repair, virus removal, malware removal, computer tune ups, data backup systems, computer troubleshooting, structured cabling, low voltage wiring, website design, graphic design, logo design, website hosting, search engine placement, iphone app programming, android app programming, and custom programming at www.cpsmi.com.  To contact one of our IT experts, call 810.224.5252 today or via email at info@cpsmi.com.

Thursday, July 19, 2018

Benefits of Managed IT Services Explained

Regardless of the size of your company, you will need an IT, Information Technology, infrastructure if you are to function within the 21st century.  Qualified IT personnel are essential as the services they provide can save small, mid-sized, and large sized owners.  Many times, small and mid-sized companies attempt to perform many IT tasks, roles, and functions in-house.  This however can result in poor performance, systems failure, downtime, and even in some cases business failure. Below is a non-exhaustive list of services that a typical managed IT company performs for clients.  These skills require In order to save money many small to mid-sized business owner attempt to perform many IT tasks, roles and functions in-house. The result is poor performance, systems failure, downtime and even bankruptcy. Below is a non-exhaustive list of services required by a typical business and which require highly-skilled staff to complete.
  • Increasing the longevity and uptime of equipment
  • Monitoring staff productivity
  • Software upgrades, licensing, and installation
  • Spam filtering
  • Securing systems and data
  • Patch management and updates
  • Monitoring and ensuring server reliability
  • Routine disaster recovery drills and tests
  • Hardware procurements, monitoring, testing, and repair
  • Network management
  • Email server setup and management
  • Spyware detection and removal
  • Creating secure systems and complete system backups
  • Server builds, maintenance, upgrades, and installation
Each of the above tasks require highly-trained IT personnel and technical equipment in order to execute. When business owners skirt around this issue, attempting to do all these tasks in-house, will quickly find themselves facing the results that come from incompetent IT repairs.       

Outsourced Managed IT Services

The solution to all most company’s IT problems is to hire the services of a managed IT company.  Out sourcing professional IT consultants often saves companies time and money.   It is important to have once company that is in charge of all of your IT needs.  This ensures that accurate records are kept, your goals and objectives are known, and you have 24/7 access to professional IT service consultants.  

Companies looking for the best IT solution will hire an outsource IT services company.  Not only will it save your company money it decreases downtime and increases the longevity of your technology as maintenance and upkeep is done on a schedule unique to your needs.

Learn more about Creative Programs and Systems, CPS, and the IT solutions they provide including IT consulting, computer consulting, network consulting, networking, server installation, IT disaster recovery, computer repair, virus removal, malware removal, computer tune ups, data backup systems, computer troubleshooting, structured cabling, low voltage wiring, website design, graphic design, logo design, website hosting, search engine placement, iphone app programming, android app programming, and custom programming at www.cpsmi.com.  To contact one of our IT experts, call 810.224.5252 today or via email at info@cpsmi.com.

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Optimizing Your Blog Posts for SEO Purposes

Blogging is one of the most effective ways of interacting with one’s audience. Regardless of niche, your fan base, prospects, or existing customers and clients need a continuous flow of refresher information about you, your products and services. Research shows businesses and organizations that are constantly engaged with their base do a better job of not only keeping those customers but of staying competitive.

When it comes to interactivity, blogging serves as one of the most effective strategies. This shows in the sheer number of blogs that go are launched every day. But with so much content and competition, how does your blog actually stand out? The answer is SEO (search engine optimization). According to information database Wikipedia, SEO “is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results is often referred to as organic results.

There are many wonderful blogs out there. An even greater number stay “undiscovered” and only get a trickle of visitors. This is because their blog posts are not optimized for SEO purposes. In other words, the blogger did a great job of writing but forgot to prep the post for their target audience and the search engines. In this article, we’ll discuss actual steps a blogger can take to optimize their blog post for SEO purposes:

  1. Content uniqueness


This cannot be over-emphasized. Search engines reward content that is unique. Copying content from other sites or engaging in plagiarism can not only have legal repercussions, it can result in the search engines ignoring that particular post.

  1. Keyword research


A lot of bloggers write around the topics they're either passionate or knowledgeable about. While this is great, they forget that the search engines are scientific tools which rely on complex algorithms to locate relevant content based on targeted keywords. A great strategy would be to first conduct keyword research to determine the most trafficked keywords in that niche then preparing content around those keywords. One of the best free keyword research tools includes the Google keyword planner tool. Others such as Spyfu avail more data for a fee.

  1. Entering correct Metadata


Once the blog post has been posted, the next step would be to ensure the search engines can find it. This step involves inputting the proper metadata to the post. Blogging platforms such as Wordpress come with add-ons or plugins that allow the blogger to attach keywords to the page title, description and post itself. Additionally, bloggers can tag their posts with the relevant keywords.

 

  1. Linking structure


In order to determine how well to rank a post, search engines check for inbound and outbound links. Outbound links point to other similar authority sites. Search engines also check for the internal linking structure within the site itself. This means checking whether the post links to other relevant posts within the same site. Many bloggers overlook this. Inbound links are also important. They are used by the search engines to determine the page authority of that post and thus how well it will rank.

  1. Images and videos

According to the search engines, a good blog post will have relevant images and preferably a video. It is recommended that the blogger embed an image or video within the content. Blogging platforms such as Wordpress make this relatively easy. The image should also be tagged with the relevant “alt” text. Embedding a popular video from YouTube can help give the post more authority and thus better rankings.

  1. Social media

Search engines have also been known to check for social signals. Because of the importance they attach to social media, they check whether there are any mentions or links to the post in the popular social media and social bookmarking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, and Mix.

Learn more about Creative Programs and Systems, CPS, and the IT solutions they provide including IT consulting, computer consulting, network consulting, networking, server installation, IT disaster recovery, computer repair, virus removal, malware removal, computer tune ups, data backup systems, computer troubleshooting, structured cabling, low voltage wiring, website design, graphic design, logo design, website hosting, search engine placement, iphone app programming, android app programming, and custom programming at www.cpsmi.com.  To contact one of our IT experts, call 810.224.5252 today or via email at info@cpsmi.com.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Common Problems with The Latest Windows 10 Update

Computer consulting is a term used by someone who offers a wide range of computer services to individuals and businesses. Computer repair is one of the more common of all of the services that consultants perform. Computer repairs can be as simple as replacing or installing new hardware, but it can also include more in-depth repairs like software or OS issues.

A computer consultant may do work for both commercial businesses and also residential computer repair depending on the way they set up their business. The operating system of a computer frequently causes a number of issues that people have with their computers and Windows 10 is the most current version of Microsoft Windows that comes preloaded.

Unfortunately, like most of the Microsoft Windows operating systems over the years, Windows 10 has had its own share of problems that people have complained about. These common problems probably make up a large portion of the computer repair requests. We came up with a list of the top ten common problems with the latest Windows 10 update

Top 10 Common Problems with The Latest Windows 10 Update


#1 Alt +Tab keys laggy while gaming - The update added a focus assist feature to be added and it is causing issues. You will need to go in and shut off all of the features.

#2 Issue with Media Creation Tool -  An issue has been reported with the Media Creation Tool which is necessary to be able to install the update using a USB flash drive. You will need to restart your computer which should allow you to try it again.

#3 Microphone won't work anymore - For some users the Windows update caused the Windows microphone to because inaccessible. You will need to go back into setting and restore access.

#4 On-screen keyboard stopped working - The update that Microsoft released caused some people to lose the onscreen keyboard that came with Windows 10. If you experience this, you can go into settings a turn it back on.

#5 Chrome browser continuously crashes after the update - Google did not see it necessary to announce any known issues with its browser, but Microsoft did and found the fix for it.

#6 PC will not boot after the KB4103721 Version 1803 patch is installed - This issue was being reported by some users and it would cause a black screen to be displayed.

#7 Windows 10 Update caused issues with SSD's - This issue was being reported on machines that had to different models of Intel's SSD (600p Series and Pro 6000p Series NVMe).

#8 Reports of desktops disappearing after the update - It appears that there was a bug in an update and it was causing the issue. It appears that MS discovered the issue and the next update repaired the issue.

#9 Update not applicable to your computer error pops up - This error usually comes up if some previous updates did not completely install correctly. You will need to check to see if there are missing or possibly failed to install.

#10 NVIDIA GPU Graphic Settings are missing after updates installed - If you have an NVIDIA based graphics card, there are reports of issues with the GPU setting getting lost. This can degrade or disable certain graphics features.

Learn more about Creative Programs and Systems, CPS, and the IT solutions they provide including IT consulting, computer consulting, network consulting, networking, server installation, IT disaster recovery, computer repair, virus removal, malware removal, computer tune ups, data backup systems, computer troubleshooting, structured cabling, low voltage wiring, website design, graphic design, logo design, website hosting, search engine placement, iphone app programming, android app programming, and custom programming at www.cpsmi.com.  To contact one of our IT experts, call 810.224.5252 today or via email at info@cpsmi.com.