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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.

3 Conclusions From Microsoft Study About AI and the Workplace

3 Conclusions From Microsoft Study About AI and the Workplace

With the release of the 2023 edition of their annual Work Trend Index report, dedicated to exploring the topic of Will AI Fix Work?, Microsoft took a deep dive into the impact that artificial intelligence will have on the workplace in the future. This report ultimately resulted in three major conclusions, which we felt we should help amplify and contextualize.

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Another Type of Phishing: Smishing

Another Type of Phishing: Smishing

We talk about phishing often here, and one method that usually flies under the radar is smishing, or phishing that is conducted via SMS messages. Although email phishing is perhaps the most common method of conducting these scams, you should also be prepared to take on smishing, as it comes with its own share of unique challenges and dangers.

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A Look at Consumer Reports’ Scam Prevention Advice

A Look at Consumer Reports’ Scam Prevention Advice

Scams are everywhere in our highly digitized world, which makes it especially imperative that everyone is prepared to deal with them—both personally and professionally. The publication Consumer Reports’ cover feature for its August 2023 edition is dedicated to exactly this goal: helping its readers avoid the various scams and threats out there. Listed below is some of the advice shared in the article, and compare it to the best practices we recommend.

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Takeaways from the VirusTotal Data Leak

Takeaways from the VirusTotal Data Leak

In 2004, a service called VirusTotal was launched and quickly became a popular antivirus and malware scanner to help detect threats in various files and URLs. It became popular enough that it was officially acquired by Google in 2012 and ultimately assimilated into Chronicle, a cloud-based security operations suite for enterprise businesses. However, despite this impressive pedigree, we find ourselves able to look to VirusTotal as a sobering reminder of how fickle cybersecurity can be, with the service being the source of some limited data exposure.

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A Proactive Technology Management Plan Can Help Your Business

A Proactive Technology Management Plan Can Help Your Business

Technology is imperative for many reasons, chief among them your business’ continued efficiency and productivity. The problem with technology, though, is that it will never last forever, and you’ll have to replace it sooner or later. Fortunately, you can delay those costs considerably by implementing a proactive technology management plan, effectively keeping the same technology running longer.

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Strategies to Get People to Listen to You Better

Strategies to Get People to Listen to You Better

It’s critical that you are able to communicate with the people you work for, with, and over; a large part of this is ensuring that your points are heard. Listed below are a few strategies and techniques that can help you ensure that those around you are apt to listen to what you have to say.

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Advice from an Amazon Email Warning about Scams

Advice from an Amazon Email Warning about Scams

Amazon Prime subscribers recently received an email from the online marketplace warning them of the prevalence of scams that took advantage of their offerings and brand recognition. Listed below is the advice that this email shared, and how it compares to the best practices we recommend for avoiding scams.

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Why Employee Satisfaction is Imperative

Why Employee Satisfaction is Imperative

When you consider your business’ investments, you probably think about things such as the hardware your team uses and the software this hardware supports. You might think about the furniture you’ve purchased to outfit your office. On the other hand, one often overlooked but critical element that needs some level of investment is your employee satisfaction.

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Technology Solutions can Enhance Collaboration Within Your Business

Technology Solutions can Enhance Collaboration Within Your Business

With collaboration remaining a vital component of any successful business, it’s imperative to foster productivity and innovation through strategic implementation of technology solutions designed for this express purpose. Listed below is a discussion of some of the aspects of collaboration you need to know to do it more effectively, as well as technology that facilitates this process.

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Pros and Cons of Automation

Pros and Cons of Automation

One way companies attempt to save money is via automating certain processes and tasks that have traditionally been time-consuming or monotonous for their workforce. When implemented appropriately, automation can cut costs, streamline operations, and enhance quality of life for workers. That being said, just because a task can be automated doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be automated. Listed below is a look at the arguments for and against automation in these contexts.

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How Much Should Your Business Be Spending on Cybersecurity?

How Much Should Your Business Be Spending on Cybersecurity?

These days you can’t afford not to have some portion of your business’ budget set aside for cybersecurity. The question is, how much do you need, and what should you be spending it on first? Let’s take a few moments to dig a little deeper into this question and examine a few cybersecurity protections you should establish as your business’ baseline defenses.

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Options for Small Businesses Looking to Go Green

Options for Small Businesses Looking to Go Green

It's not unusual for today's businesses to turn more and more often to “green” technologies, partially due to the reduced environmental impacts that come with their use, and partially due to the operational advantages that many of these technologies also bring. Listed below are some of the options that even smaller businesses can embrace that bring these kinds of mutual benefits.

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How to Develop Better Habits

How to Develop Better Habits

Productivity is always a key focus for a business today, which makes any effort to improve it a welcome one. We wanted to take a moment and introduce you to a simple concept to make it easier to develop productive habits: habit stacking.

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What Your Business Needs to Know about BYOD

What Your Business Needs to Know about BYOD

There’s no denying that running a successful business comes with its fair share of costs, and many would argue that some of these costs are anything but fair. As such, it makes sense to try and minimize your operating expenses by any sustainable means. Let’s go over one such cost-saving measure you can implement—Bring Your Own Device policies—and address how to do so without shortchanging your organization's security in the process.

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The Simplest Way to Add Up a Column in Excel

The Simplest Way to Add Up a Column in Excel

Microsoft Excel is an extremely capable spreadsheet creation and management tool, made all the more powerful via the inclusion of many handy shortcuts and features. We wanted to share one for a common enough function that you are sure to find a use for it: quickly adding up the values in a single column.

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The Five Levels of Delegation

The Five Levels of Delegation

As the boss, you’re in a position to offload many of your business’ responsibilities to your employees. That’s more or less why you have employees in the first place. That being said, there’s more than one way that you can delegate tasks, depending on your personal style of management and the work style of each of your employees.

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Be Especially Aware of Blank Emails

Be Especially Aware of Blank Emails

We talk a lot about phishing. What it is, what it does, and perhaps most importantly, what it looks like. However, have you ever expected a phishing email to look like… nothing? As in, a completely blank message?

If you answered, “no,” that’s exactly what today’s cybercriminals are counting on.

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How Managed IT Pays for Itself

How Managed IT Pays for Itself

Businesses use all kinds of sayings to try to draw in customers. One of the core selling points of managed IT services is that “it pays for itself”. This is more than just marketing. The multiple services that make up managed IT services all help a business save time and money, but when added together, it can really help the bottom line of a business more than most services they can use. In this week’s blog we thought we would go through the core elements of a managed IT services agreement to show how it really does pay for itself. 

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Google Alerts can be a Helpful Resource

Google Alerts can be a Helpful Resource

There are numerous ways that Google can be a valuable resource for a business of any size. One way that you may not have thought of before: an automated insights collector.

Listed below: how you could be using Google Alerts to keep yourself up to speed on basically whatever you want.

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3 Common Browser Myths

3 Common Browser Myths

There is a lot of misinformation and misperceptions related to network security out there, especially concerning small businesses. In particular, browser security is one aspect where many individuals’ knowledge simply falls flat, and they buy into myths that put their data at risk. Listed below is an attempt clear up some of these misconceptions so you can go about your day in a more secure way.

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