Technology has changed the way that a lot of different industries approach operations, and academia is no different. Depending on the type of student, however, the use of technology differs and varies considerably. We’ll discuss how those in education take advantage of technology in ways that may have seemed so far away just a few decades ago.

As financial services have become a much bigger percentage of the economy in the United States, more interest, and capital, is being poured into improving financial services technology. Known as FinTech, there have been many great recent innovations that provide better information, opportunities, and ultimately returns for investors. This month, we take a look at what the FinTech industry is trying to do, and the effects it has on investors, and the economy as a whole.

Most computer users know of the hard drive, but how many actually know what it does? Depending on who you ask, you’ll get different degrees of answers. It’s rare that you’ll encounter the ordinary person who knows what the hard drive is, as well as how it works or what it does. This week’s tech term is the hard drive, so let’s dig in.

How much value does your company get from its technological assets? This might seem like a simple question, but it doesn’t have a simple answer. You can implement the latest and greatest solutions, but you don’t necessarily gain value from them, or as much as similar organizations in your field. With businesses aiming to cut costs and secure a profitable future, how can you make sure that IT is providing value to your organization?

Businesses today rely on so much technology that it’s impossible to think about operations without considering how technology can make them more efficient. In fact, many organizations would completely collapse without the innovations brought about as a result of technology development. One of the hottest trends over the past few years has been the shift from in-house assets to web-based assets, ranging from application access to infrastructure hosting.

Your business either has a sound plan to manage its IT maintenance, or it does not. There is no middle ground here. Either you have an internal team dedicated to maintaining your IT infrastructure, or it’s not being taken care of as well as it should be. Even if you do have an internal team, you might notice that they simply don’t have time on their hands to handle all of their responsibilities. We’re here to introduce you to one of the most notable ways of keeping your technology in proper working order: managed IT services.

Do you know how the countless devices entering the workplace will affect your business’s infrastructure and security? It’s important to remain future-minded about how the Internet of Things and connected devices will influence your business in the near future. According to HAX Hardware Trends, 2018 will see a multitude of changes in how we approach the Internet of Things, as well as how businesses manage it for their networks.

It’s true that email is such a common solution that most people don’t think twice about how it works. However, it’s imperative that you at least understand the concept, as it can provide you with a considerable advantage when it comes time to optimize email access on your mobile devices. First, we’ll discuss the ways in which the two major message exchange protocols differ, and then dig into the specifics of why you should choose one over the other.

Technology is a necessity for businesses everywhere if they are to reach their goals, which are themselves influenced by the technology that businesses have access to. If this cycle is to continue, a business needs to establish what is expected to come next in the line of IT innovation. From the looks of it, businesses are currently placing convenience in high regard.

Vince Lombardi, one of the most successful head coaches in NFL history, once said “If you are five minutes early, you are already ten minutes late.” Although it wasn’t its intended use, this quotation can easily apply to technology. The tech industry is constantly changing, improving, and innovating. Adapting to changes is something all businesses must do to thrive, small and medium businesses included.

Those in the business sector in charge of making decisions can often break down the choices they face as follows: benefit the short term vs the long term. If you’ve got experience with decision making, then you realize that planning for the long term works out better for all parties involved, including your bottom line. This is especially the case when it comes to big decisions involving technology.

How would you like to be able to charge your smartphone by simply walking down the street? Or to be able to turn the tie you’re wearing into a voice-recognition security system? Thanks to a team at Michigan State University, these abilities may not be so out of the question, as they have developed a promising little device that could be used to achieve these goals and many others.

In recent years, the familiar hard disk drive has slowly been losing ground to the much faster solid state drive. As they operate through very different processes, there are a few critical differences that you need to be aware of: SSDs have a limit to how many times data can be rewritten on the drive. This limit isn’t small, a standard consumer SSD drive is rated to sustain 40 gigs of data writing per day for 10 years. This may seem like a lot, but you’ll only get good results if you meet certain requirements and practices.

Everyone knows that everything in the break room fridge needs to be replaced after a certain amount of time, but that’s not all that’s at your business that needs regular updates. The solutions you use every day will also need maintenance, for quite a few reasons.

There’s an undeniable connection between success and emotional attachment. Marketers know this, which is why you see so many commercials meant to manipulate your heartstrings. The point of these stirring advertisements is to engage consumers on a deeper level, and thus, create brand loyalty. It stands to reason that the same strategy can be applied to retaining and engaging your employees.

Fact: Millennials are entering the workforce en masse. Therefore, employers and workers from earlier generations shouldn’t be so quick to write off the generation that now makes up the largest segment of the workforce. In order to properly leverage this differently-thinking group, managers need to understand a few things about how Gen Y thinks, behaves, and what they value.

Is your organization using the latest technology solutions? If so, that’s great--you’ve taken the first step toward achieving maximum productivity and efficiency. However, you need to realize that no technology solution comes without its quirks that need to be addressed. Here are two ways that your new technology solutions could potentially be putting your business’s infrastructure at risk.

There’s no denying that flexibility is important. While technology makes it easier than ever before to communicate and work anytime, anywhere, employees should be encouraged to use this flexibility to their advantage. Yet, it’s often quite easy to fall victim to the many pitfalls of flexibility, which is why it’s so important to invest in solutions designed to maximize productivity.

When was the last time you had to reach out to IT support, only to have to wait for the tech to drive to your office and resolve the problem far too late? This is a common occurrence amongst business owners, and if your technology is mission-critical, you can’t afford to deal with more downtime than necessary. How can your business more effectively take advantage of technology support? A remote monitoring and maintenance solution may be just what you need.

Replacing your aging or broken-down hardware is a part of doing business, and one that few business owners want to think about before it must be done. Hardware is expensive and tricky to replace without experiencing at least some downtime. That’s not to mention arguably one of the most important questions you have to ask yourself: What do you do with your old technology that’s filled with sensitive data?