Modern-day technological disasters, such as malware, ransomware, phishing attacks and data breaches are damaging and detrimental to companies of all sizes, but small- and medium-sized businesses can be hit especially hard. According to a recent Nationwide Small Business Indicator survey, 68% of small business owners don’t have a formal disaster recovery plan, even though 58% of […]
Midnight Blue Ranked Among World’s Most Elite 501 Managed Service Providers
Midnight Blue has once again been named as one of the world’s premier managed service providers on the prestigious 12th annual Channel Futures MSP 501 rankings. As an IT services and solutions provider, we’re proud of our outstanding technology and managed services offerings for small to mid-sized businesses across the Southwest Pennsylvania region—and prouder still […]
Our Comprehensive Guide to Purchasing a New Computer, Part II
In part two of our desktop buying guide, we’ll focus on RAM, or random access memory. Some users have difficulty understanding this, so we’ll do our best to make sure it’s easy to grasp and apply to your own purchasing habits. You’ll learn how to make the best decisions regarding how much RAM your device […]
Our Comprehensive Guide to Purchasing a New Computer, Part I
Most people and businesses rely on computers to get things done. When you are looking to buy a new PC for your home or office, you need to understand all the elements so that you can make an educated choice. To assist you along in this process we’ve put together a five-part guide that outlines […]
Hack of Capital One Exposes Information on Millions of Customers
Capital One is one of the largest credit card issuers in the world. On July 29th 2019, Capital One made an announcement, confirming it is the victim of one of the largest data breaches in financial sector history, as a former software engineer for Amazon has been indicted on charges related to the hacking. Here’s […]
You Should Keep an Eye on Automation
The use of automation is making waves in several industries for the boost in productivity it presents and overall cost reduction. With these systems being integrated very rapidly, the fear is that human workers are going to be replaced by machines. The honest truth is that many jobs will be displaced and result in jobs […]
You Need to Sufficiently Prepare to Make Changes to Your Business’ IT
Technology is something that experiences rapid change, and while it’s usually beneficial to businesses, change can often bring with it a set of growing pains. You might be able to get more done and reach more customers, but it might stretch your resources, frustrate employees, and force new processes upon your organization. When this change […]
The Best Way to Value Managed IT Services
Can you place a value on your organization’s IT solutions? Sure, but the true value of them is really how much money they save you in the grand scheme of things. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the amount of capital your technology solutions cost could completely sink any profits your business pulls in. […]
7 IT Myths We Hear Too Often
When you work in the IT space, you get to hear some funny things – technology myths, conspiracies, and other rumors that are shared around the water cooler. We’ve heard it all, and we wanted to share some of these myths so you don’t get tripped up by them. Myth 1: You’ll Ruin a Smartphone’s […]
Is It Fair to Be Fired for Falling for a Phishing… Test?
Let’s run through a quick scenario: your company’s computing infrastructure is infected with ransomware. Fortunately, you have an offsite backup, so you are able to restore your systems without too much trouble, other than the time you’ve lost. As you investigate the root cause, you discover that one of your employees allowed the ransomware in […]
Tip of the Week: Speed Up Your Computing with Windows Shortcuts
The Windows operating system has quite a few shortcuts baked in, each offering a user quicker access to the utility they are seeking out. It may sound crazy, but using these keyboard shortcuts can actually eliminate the eight days the average employee accumulates every year by just moving their hand from their keyboard to their […]
Your Guide to the Malware You Could Encounter
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone nowadays who hasn’t heard of malware, although they may have difficulty identifying different threats as they encounter them. Does this sound like the people that you work with? We’re here with a simple solution to assist you and your team in spotting the different kinds of threats – a […]
Tip of the Week: How to Secure Your Internet Browser
Most people today spend a lot of time on the Internet, which means that most people spend a lot of time using a browser. Little do they know, selecting the wrong one could easily put their cybersecurity at risk, along with dozens of other actions. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over how to make […]
Two-Factor Authentication Works to Remove Security Risks
Imagine a scenario where your password has been stolen by a hacker. Now your accounts are completely at the mercy of them. What do you do? Obviously you want to change the password, but are you going to learn from this mistake or let it happen again in the future? Thankfully, two-factor authentication offers a […]
Why You Shouldn’t Ask Just Anyone for Tech Advice
When it comes to dealing with things around the office, most people have almost no problem calling in a subject-matter expert to handle the issue. Toilet won’t stop running? Bring in a plumber. Simple, right? Yet, it seems that there’s one notable exception: technology issues. Basically, there seems to be an assumption that, if someone […]
Tip of the Week: Determining the Return on Your IT Investment
As time passes, your business will need to be able to grow and develop its use of technology through thoughtful investments and improvements. To do so, it helps to calculate the returns you can anticipate seeing from these investments. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over how to do so. How Your IT Investments Can […]
Backup Your Data to Protect Your Business
It’s not always hackers that create dangerous situations for your organization. Threats can come from even unforeseen locations, such as your business’s network. No matter what the threat is, though, you have to be extremely careful about the little things that spell doom for organizations just like yours. One of these is failing to have […]
Use Any Internet Connection with a VPN
How often does your business have employees traveling to conferences or working remotely due to circumstances or physical location? With technology improving at a rapid pace, these opportunities are more possible now than they ever were in the past, and depending on the solution implemented, they are far more efficient, too. Of course, one thing […]
Announcement from Midnight Blue
It is with great pride and tremendous happiness that we announce that Jim Gatto is now officially a partner at Midnight Blue! Over the last four years, Jim has become an integral part of Midnight Blue. As the COO and VP of Technology Services, he is directly responsible and can take credit for the quality […]
Time Is Up for SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2
An older version of Microsoft’s popular database software SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 is losing support on July 9. If you haven’t updated away from the software, your organization’s IT is staring down a few very drastic problems. Today, we’ll go into your options with so little time left before the software’s […]