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Preferred Blog

Preferred has been serving the Tinley Park area since 1991, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support, and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Vince Arden is the founder and President of Preferred Communication Systems. He is a graduate of DeVry University with over 30 years of experience in the IT industry. In addition to providing leadership in sales, marketing, project management, and service delivery at Preferred, Vince provides Virtual CIO-level services for the 4th-largest Realtor Association in the nation and to an Inc. 500 fastest growing company. He has been interviewed by industry publications like Redmond magazine, CRN News, and Continuum for his expertise related to cloud computing and the managed IT services industry. He also lends his voice as a contributing author for the Cloud Business Review.

His core purpose is to, "Help people achieve their greatest potential in work and L.I.F.E." He passionately works toward making this a reality in every aspect of life, including his areas of expertise, such as thought leadership, ideation, communication, team building, and Servant Leadership. Vince models building strong relationships, both with his team at Preferred and with his clients. He strives to build a network of people he can embolden to work smarter, so that they may ultimately be able to live better.

Good Vendor Relationships Can Boost Your Business

Good Vendor Relationships Can Boost Your Business

Your business requires you to make certain compromises. Still, when it comes to building a network of vendors that can help you realize your goals, you have to take some time and carefully select the people you want to have long-lasting relationships with because constantly changing vendors can cause plenty of problems for you. In this month’s newsletter, we discuss how to get the most out of your vendor relationships.

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Let’s Align Your IT with Your Success

Let’s Align Your IT with Your Success

We want to make sure you can get the most out of your relationship with us. In this month’s newsletter, we give you three communication touchpoints so that the work we do for you helps foster more growth and efficiency in the work that you do.

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Tip of the Month: Create Better Passwords

Tip of the Month: Create Better Passwords

Think about how many online accounts you have. With so many accounts, it’s important to make sure they’re secure. Creating strong passwords is one of the best ways to protect your accounts from hackers. Here’s how you can create passwords that are hard to crack and keep all your online accounts safe.

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An Up-to-Date Operating System is a Mandatory Piece of Software

An Up-to-Date Operating System is a Mandatory Piece of Software

Operating systems are the backbone of any computer or device. Whether it’s your phone, a tablet, or a computer, the operating system controls how the device works, allowing you to run apps, browse the web, and complete tasks. For businesses, having up-to-date operating systems is especially important. Let's look at why this is critical and what can happen if businesses don’t keep up!

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How to Secure Your File-Sharing Practices for Improved Operations

How to Secure Your File-Sharing Practices for Improved Operations

Collaboration is as important as ever, if not more so, to businesses of any size… and with so much work today being done digitally, this collaboration needs to be reliable. Add in the fact that so many people work remotely as often as they do, and it should be clear that all businesses need a means of securely collaborating as part of their successful operations.

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Tech Term: Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

Tech Term: Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

Some websites have an orange icon with waves coming from a dot in the bottom-left corner. This icon is for an RSS feed. RSS feeds are great for users who want to add the website’s content to an RSS reader—but what does this even mean? Let’s find out.

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Tip of the Week: Handy Shortcuts for Quickbooks Convenience

Tip of the Week: Handy Shortcuts for Quickbooks Convenience

Financial management and accounting are two business needs that apply to all organizations of any size or industry. Fortunately, these organizations have access to tools like Intuit QuickBooks to help them fill these needs in a way that is accessible and convenient.

Let’s review some shortcuts to help you be more productive in managing your business finances via QuickBooks.

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Six Ways to Improve Your Operations

Six Ways to Improve Your Operations

Successful businesses need to adjust to changes in the market, what customers want, and new industry trends. This means they have to know their business well and be willing to try new things. Let’s look at six key areas where businesses often make changes to stay successful.

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How Business Email Compromise Puts Your Business at Risk

How Business Email Compromise Puts Your Business at Risk

Can you tell the difference between your colleagues and a scammer with access to their email account? This is essentially what a business email compromise attack involves—a scammer initiates a phishing scheme using an internal mode of communication. These scams are also observed in schools, making them dangerous in the education sector.

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3 Downtime-Causing Issues You’ll Want to Nip in the Bud

3 Downtime-Causing Issues You’ll Want to Nip in the Bud

Downtime can be lethal to businesses, not only because too much can lead to failure, but it can easily waste a lot of your team’s time as everyone shifts gears to find a solution. This is why is it best to avoid it as often as possible.

That’s why we’re discussing three of the most prevalent causes of downtime, and what you can do to prevent them.

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Zero-Trust Needs to Be the Goal for Every Business’ Security

Zero-Trust Needs to Be the Goal for Every Business’ Security

Would you feel safe staying at a hotel that, instead of unique locks, each door used the same key as all of the others? Probably not—because if someone got in, they could take whatever they wanted. That’s similar to how old-school cybersecurity worked. Once someone got into a company’s network, they could access almost everything, making it easy for hackers to steal information. But today, many businesses use a better security framework called zero-trust security. In today’s blog, we discuss what zero-trust security is and why it’s safer.

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Is Your Smartphone Smart Enough?

Is Your Smartphone Smart Enough?

For the longest time, smartphone manufacturers looked to develop devices that came with unique features in all different manners of form factors. Nowadays, however, there are very few phone manufacturers and those that are left have pretty much decided, for now, what the smartphone would look like. Even the ones that fold in half look and function pretty much the same. In this week’s blog, we will take a look at the declining innovation in the smartphone market and why it may not be a bad thing.

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Staying Productive is Crucial for Everyone

Staying Productive is Crucial for Everyone

It can be difficult staying productive with all the things that happen day-in and day-out around your business. When your team is productive, it helps you stay focused and organized, and it can make a big difference in how successful you are. This week we break down just how keeping productivity levels high can make or break a business.

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Two-Factor Authentication is a Must Have

Two-Factor Authentication is a Must Have

Two-factor authentication (2FA) has become a critical security measure in the digital age, providing an additional layer of protection against unauthorized access. As cyber threats grow more sophisticated, relying solely on passwords is no longer enough. 

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Your Business Isn’t Too Small to Be a Target for Hackers

Your Business Isn’t Too Small to Be a Target for Hackers

"I don’t need to worry about cybersecurity… my business is too small for hackers to target."

This is one of the most dangerous misconceptions a small business can have. If you believe this, you may not fully understand how modern cyberattacks work. Let’s break down why this mindset can leave your business vulnerable.

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How to Activate Two-Factor Authentication in Windows

How to Activate Two-Factor Authentication in Windows

Two-factor authentication has become a must-have for any online-connected account that relies on password protection. The benefits of the technology are pretty straightforward. Instead of just filling out your password for authentication, a user needs to have another method in order to access an account. In this month’s newsletter we thought we would take a look at how to enable 2FA on your Microsoft account, which includes Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and Outlook.

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The NIST Recommends This 5-Stage Cybersecurity Framework

The NIST Recommends This 5-Stage Cybersecurity Framework

If there’s one thing that helps businesses establish consistent policies and strategy, it’s a good framework. You can use a framework for anything, including network security. Today, we want to walk you through the cybersecurity protection standards as they are outlined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology so you can better protect your business.

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Data Backups are Critical for Modern Businesses

Data Backups are Critical for Modern Businesses

You’ve probably heard us talk about the importance of backing up data for business owners, managers, and even everyday workers. This month, we’re focusing on incremental backups and why they’re a great choice for small businesses looking to protect their data.

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An Ongoing Legal Battle Could Determine the Future of AI Used in Art

An Ongoing Legal Battle Could Determine the Future of AI Used in Art

You might remember the buzz when Josh Allen, a digital artist, won first place at the 2022 Colorado State Fair for his digital artwork called "Théâtre D'opéra Spatial." The catch? He created the image using AI. Now, he’s in a fight with the Copyright Office to prove that his work deserves copyright protection.

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These IT Services Help You Compete with the Big Guys

These IT Services Help You Compete with the Big Guys

Small businesses today are in a prime position to thrive, thanks to a surge in innovative technologies that are affordable and work to boost efficiency. In the past, access to cutting-edge technology was often reserved for large corporations, but today small businesses can now gain quick access to these technologies and can have a real positive effect on the way they go about doing business. Let’s take a look at some of the best technologies small businesses can use to try and compete with the big boys.

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      Collaboration is as important as ever, if not more so, to businesses of any size… and with so much work today being done digitally, this collaboration needs to be reliable. Add in the fact that so many people work remotely as often as they do, and it should be clear that all...

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      Best Places to Work - 5 YEARS STRONG!!

      Preferred is once again, honored for being a Best Place to Work for the fifth straight year!  Our team is what makes Preferred a Best Place to Work.  

      Daily Herald Suburban Business 2024 Best Places to Work Honorees The Daily Herald Suburban Business has announced the names of 51 companies, in 5 categories of competition, that are honored as the 2024 Best Places to Work in Illinois. This statewide survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Illinois, benefiting the state's economy, its workforce and businesses.