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Macro Systems Blog

Macro Systems has been serving the Metro Washington, DC area since 1997, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

How to Protect Your Personal Data

How to Protect Your Personal Data

Modern wisdom states that if you’re not paying for a product, you’re the product.

For all the good the Internet is capable of doing, it is equally capable of being dangerous… especially when data is involved. Websites and social media platforms collect data from their users and track their movements across the Internet, sell it to advertisers, and more recently, use it to train AI.

Listed below is what you can, and arguably should, do to limit these platforms' ability to do so.

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How to Reposition the Taskbar in Windows 11

How to Reposition the Taskbar in Windows 11

Windows 11 takes a page out of Apple’s design playbook and provides a taskbar that, instead of being off to the side, is smack in the middle of the toolbar. While some may like this change, others may not.

Luckily for these others, a simple setting change can return the taskbar to its familiar place like on older versions of Windows.

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Windows 11 Desktop Tips to Customize Your Workstation

Windows 11 Desktop Tips to Customize Your Workstation

Windows 11 features a robust desktop environment with a lot of neat tricks and customizations to work more effectively. Controlling your Windows desktop experience can increase productivity and streamline the way you interact with your computer. Listed below are four tips to help you customize and manage your Windows environment more efficiently.

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How to Stop LinkedIn from Using Your Data to Train AI

How to Stop LinkedIn from Using Your Data to Train AI

Artificial intelligence is everywhere, and it is making data more valuable than ever. This is because AI platforms rely heavily on data to function effectively. Many platforms and services gather data from their users to fuel these algorithms. LinkedIn has recently been found to do this—by default—without properly informing its users or updating its terms of service.

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File Sharing Tips for Your Business

File Sharing Tips for Your Business

File sharing is a huge deal. When you try to send your friends a meme or share a video with them and it doesn’t send… that can be extremely irritating. When it comes to business file sharing, miscommunication can cost quite a bit. Listed below is a look at two concepts in small business file sharing and how they help a small business.

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How to Use Gmail’s Priority Inbox to Your Advantage

How to Use Gmail’s Priority Inbox to Your Advantage

If you use Gmail, you might have noticed the different inbox categories available. This makes it much easier to reach “inbox zero.” With the “priority inbox,” you can achieve this feat without so much as breaking a sweat—unless you count sweat from how much you’re laughing at how easy this tip is to pull off.

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Signs that You are Being Scammed

Signs that You are Being Scammed

Being scammed in any capacity is a scary thought. To avoid this outcome, we must be vigilant all the time now.

Naturally, it also helps to know what to look for.

Listed below are a few warning signs and red flags that something is likely a scam.

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How to Utilize Google Drive to Send Large Files

How to Utilize Google Drive to Send Large Files

Google Workspace is an effective business platform for your productivity suite, but Google Drive on its own has some merit as a cloud storage and file-sharing platform. Listed below: how to use Google Drive to share large files.

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Technology that can Improve Your Marketing Strategies

Technology that can Improve Your Marketing Strategies

With technology being such a massive part of modern business, many organizations are looking to use it to their advantage. One aspect of the business that is increasingly significant is their ability to stand out amongst their competition. Listed below are a few technologies that can enhance your organizational marketing efforts.

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How to Stay Safe on Social Media in 2024

How to Stay Safe on Social Media in 2024

You can do everything in your power to secure your social media accounts and lock down your privacy settings. Still, at the end of the day, social media users expose themselves to a torrent of information and content every time they log on. As a civilization, we’ve never really had something like this before. These platforms curate content that the user wants to see to keep the user coming back and staying longer. It’s inherently designed to be enticing and addicting, which is dangerous for certain individuals.

Then, there are scams and an endless stream of grifts that pose a wide range of additional problems for users.

Listed below are ways you and those you care about can be safer on social media.

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Tips on Protecting Yourself on Social Media in 2024

Tips on Protecting Yourself on Social Media in 2024

Social media is continuously evolving, and if the big social networks had it their way, it would be the only place people go when they log onto the Internet. Whether you have strong feelings for or against social media, or perhaps you are indifferent, it’s imperative to know how to protect yourself when using social media.

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Zip Files Explained

Zip Files Explained

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

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How to Utilize Adobe Generative AI to Dress Yourself Up for a Professional Selfie

How to Utilize Adobe Generative AI to Dress Yourself Up for a Professional Selfie

While AI is far from perfect, there are ways that it can help do something mundane or speed up a workflow here or there. I’m no expert in Photoshop either, so if I need to edit something, I usually depend on someone with a little more experience, but this was a really neat trick I was able to do in just a few minutes!

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How to Create Sticky Notes in One Note

How to Create Sticky Notes in One Note

Note taking apps are really helpful and Microsoft OneNote is one of the most available and feature rich apps on the market for this use. You are probably familiar with the sticky note. They are notes that give a solid visual representation of items that workers need to be cognizant of for all types of processes. Listed below is the process of creating “sticky notes” in OneNote.

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Tips for Managing Guests/External Microsoft Teams Users

Tips for Managing Guests/External Microsoft Teams Users

There will always be times when you have to invite guests and other external users to your Microsoft Teams meetings, especially if you want to take advantage of the many collaboration options offered through the platform. Still, you need to be very careful with guests and external users, especially in today’s cybersecurity-centric world.

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Three Practices to Help Employees with the Technology They Have to Utilize

Three Practices to Help Employees with the Technology They Have to Utilize

Technology plays an enormous role for most businesses these days, and not everyone always grasps the importance of it. Most of the time, there is so much built into today’s enterprise software that it can often be overwhelming for workers to use it effectively. Listed below are three tips on how to help employees get a grasp of the technology their productivity depends on.

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How to Create Google Forms that Auto-Populate Google Sheets

How to Create Google Forms that Auto-Populate Google Sheets

There are several reasons to use a form to collect data for your organization: from customer impressions and service requirements to employee feedback about internal matters as a means of collaborative decision-making. The trouble comes when it is time to compile all the responses… unless you know how to use the tools at your disposal.

Listed below is the process of creating a form that self-populates a spreadsheet using Google’s toolkit.

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A Warning about Downloading and Installing APK Files on your Android Smartphone

A Warning about Downloading and Installing APK Files on your Android Smartphone

Your Android smartphone is a computer itself; as such, it runs with an operating system installed. You install programs on your smartphone the same way you install them on your computer, although the process is more complicated. Below is an explanation of the types of files that the Android operating system uses to install apps on your phone, as well as why it might be a good idea to let the Google Play Store do the hard work for you, in terms of locating and installing apps.

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Steps to Policing Your IT Policies

Steps to Policing Your IT Policies

Small businesses are presented with the challenging prospect of monitoring and policing various IT-related policies that you might have for your network infrastructure and workplace technology use. The difficulty of this notion does little to lessen its importance. You need to take action to protect your assets, data, and reputation from the countless threats out there, and ensuring that your employees are properly using technology is paramount to this endeavor.

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How to Make Your Network VoIP-Friendly

How to Make Your Network VoIP-Friendly

We could go on and on about the advantages of using Voice over Internet Protocol (also known as VoIP) for your business telephone needs. That being said, it is imperative that you do everything you can to prepare your network for this kind of utilization. Listed below are a few tips to help make sure your network is properly optimized for VoIP.

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