IT Horizons Blog

Hello! It’s us, your friendly Grande Prairie IT services company, here to answer some of your questions about all things ‘IT’.   Do you help individuals with computer problems? No , IT Horizons works with small to mid-sized businesses. Although much of our work is with individuals at those businesses, our work is only through these organizations. We always get the latest software and upgrades so we don’t need an IT consultant, right? That depends. Are you confident that you’re getting only what you need, and that what you’re purchasing is saving time and money? If not, we can help. An IT consultant is not a salesperson. Our job is to analyze your organization, your current systems, and your needs, and then decide what solutions will suit you best (and actually save you time and money). If your IT strategy is to always buy and upgrade, then you’re using excess...

It can be difficult to accommodate even occasional changes for new hires, terminations, or staff changing jobs within your organization. If you’re like many other businesses in Grande Prairie and are dealing with seasonal highs and lows or high turnover, if your business has frequent staff changes it can be a nightmare on the IT side. When poorly managed, such moves, adds, and changes can be extremely painful, costly, and time-consuming to your business. You need to make sure your previous employee’s security access is neatly revoked on time. What should you do with their email? Who is taking over their responsibilities? Does your new hire have a computer assigned to them? Do they have the right printers? Are email list memberships and shared contacts in order? Do they have the documents and applications they need? Will it take a day, two, or even more before the IT changes are...

When helping our Grande Prairie clients plan their hardware lifecycle I’m often asked about the price difference between consumer and business class devices. If you can go down the street to Costco or Best Buy and pick up the latest back-to-school-special laptop for $500, why on earth would you spend two or even three times that amount for a business-line laptop from Lenovo or Dell? Here are some important points to consider when purchasing computers to make sure you’re getting the best return on your investment. In the Windows PC market, inexpensive home lines come with whatever low-cost surplus components are available to the manufacturer on the factory floor at the time. Because of this, the specifications change month-to-month or even faster and there can be wide differences in the nuts and bolts even within a single model of PC or laptop. This means that not only are you often...

You’ve probably heard of Cryptolocker. It’s the nefarious ransomware trojan targeting Microsoft Windows that made the rounds via email starting in 2013-2014 that locked businesses out of their own files by encrypting them and holding them hostage. It impacted many – including Grande Prairie organizations that you know and may do business with! Cryptolocker and its many ransomware cousins act like typical viruses in the way they’re spread and distributed. But what makes ransomware so dangerous to you and your business is the fact that it specifically targets corporate data for monetary gain and the results can be catastrophic for those whose network is unprepared and inadequately protected from such an attack. Ransomware works by encrypting and locking you out of the files on your computers, server, and network storage. These files could include your policies and procedures, sensitive contracts and agreements, or your accounting database and financials. The attackers...

Folders suck at making your data and documents easily searchable and they’re slowing your business down. That’s a pretty bold statement isn’t it? After all, file folders have been used since the early days of enterprise to store documents and information, why all of the sudden do they suck? I’m going to answer that for you with a quickly conjured example of your typical folder, letting you down when you need it the most. I’ve always thought accounting was sort of a neat field, so I’m going to create a fake accounting firm called ‘Horizons Accounting and Bookkeeping Company’ (HABCO). Here is what a folder structure for a company such as HABCO might look like. You can see we have: Duplicate sub-folders such as invoices, taxes and year end. A complicated amount of folder/subfolder nesting. Folders are containers. They describe what is inside of them. The invoices folder holds invoices, straightforward...