Preferred Blog

Let me ask you a simple question: how many cell phones have you had over the years? For some of us, upgrades are a yearly occurrence. For others possibly bi-yearly. Have you ever wondered where your old cell phone goes after it is out of your hands? 

Businesses today want to save money and cut costs whenever possible, and technology has made it much easier to do so. Now, organizations can eliminate unnecessary hardware, clear the office space of file storage systems, and even eliminate clutter associated with paper documents.

The Benefits of Going Paperless
Your business can benefit greatly from eliminating paper consumption. The following are potential gains that will improve your business’s operations and bottom line.

• Cost savings: How much does your business spend annually on ink and paper products? If your organization can cut down on the amount of printing that it does, you’ll naturally spend less on paper and ink, increasing your bottom line and freeing up funds that can be spent elsewhere.
• Clutter and wasted space: You don’t need us to tell you that filing cabinets are huge and bulky wastes of space. While they might help you keep paper clutter to a minimum, they’re a pain to move and an even bigger pain to take with you if you relocate your office. Wouldn’t it be nice to just store your files digitally and not worry about dragging unnecessary furniture with you?
• Easily-searchable file archiving: How much time do you waste digging through filing cabinets whenever you need a specific document? With electronic record storage, searching through files has never been easier.
• Backup services: In the event of a disaster, what’s more likely to survive; your digital files that are safely stored in the cloud, or your physical documents that are vulnerable to water and fire damage? Not only does storing your files digitally make them more secure, but it also makes them much easier to back up and restore in case disaster strikes.

How it Helps the Environment
According to PaperlessProductivity, one tree produces, on average, 17 reams of paper. This same tree takes at least 100 years to grow. If you consider how much paper your business uses every day, and then multiply that for every business in the world, chances are that you’ll come up with a number that well exceeds the amount of paper that a single tree can provide. That’s not to mention other users of paper products, like universities, individual consumers, government agencies, and so on. Just think - it takes over 100 years to replace what modern businesses use for paper documents every day.

How We Can Help
If your business wants the opportunity to drastically eliminate paper waste and printing costs, Preferred can help. We can equip your business with an electronic record storage system that’s designed to store your paper documents in a secure, compliant digital space. This helps to keep your documents safe and sound, while making them easy to find when they’re needed.

Plus, if you’re still (somehow) attached to your fax machine, we can help your business implement a fax server that can essentially transform your business’s faxes into emails that hit your inbox. To learn more, give us a call at 708-781-7110.

So you’ve gotten yourself some new hardware. That’s great, but what are you going to do with your old equipment? You need to make sure that you’re handling your old technology properly, and there may be ways for your old hardware to find a second life. Before chucking it in the trash, first consider your options.

Be Sure to Take Care of Your Data
First off, no matter what you end up doing with your old hardware, if you’re dealing with a hard drive previously used to store important files, then you need to take steps to ensure that this data won’t be recovered and fall into the wrong hands. The common mistake made here is for users to think that just deleting the files by way of emptying the Recycle Bin is enough. This simply isn’t the case, seeing as many of these deleted files can still be recovered.

Instead, before passing an old computer on to someone else, you’ll first want to make sure that the hard drive gets wiped--a procedure that truly erases everything. Also, if you decide to throw your equipment in the trash, it’s best practice to first physically destroy the hard drive so that it can’t be found by a tech-savvy dumpster diver (which isn’t as farfetched as it sounds). For example, this can be accomplished by putting the hard drive under a drill press or sledge hammer. To know for sure that you’re properly taking care of your old hard drive, be sure to consult IT professionals.

Donate Your Old Hardware to a Good Cause
It feels good to give to charity (not to mention the tax incentives), and there are likely some great non-profit organizations in your community that would find your old hardware to be useful. However, if your old equipment is on its last leg, then it would be better for you to dispose of it so that you’re not burdening them with your junk. Be sure to talk with a representative from the charity before showing up with a truckload of old computers.

If you are passing on your old equipment, one way that you can both protect your data and make sure that they’re getting working technology is to swap out the old hard drive for a new one. New hard drives are generally inexpensive, and seeing as the average hard disk drive has a lifespan of five years, you don’t want to gift an old computer that could essentially crash at any time.

Reuse and Repurpose Your Old Hardware for Around the Office
If there’s still some life in your old equipment, you may be able to find a use for it around the office. Here are some examples:

• Using an old computer for a print or fax server will take some stress off of your network, though it would require reconfigurations to be made.
• Keeping the computer on hand for spare parts.
• Keeping an operational workstation on hand as a spare PC, just in case an operational PC runs into an issue and needs to be swapped out temporarily.

Be Sure to Recycle
When it comes to disposing of old technology, we highly recommend that you recycle it. Computer components are made up of some highly toxic metals that can damage the environment if tossed into a landfill. Instead, old computer equipment needs to be disposed of properly and recycled in a special way. Preferred can take care of this for you. To arrange a time to drop off your old equipment at our office, feel free to contact us at 708-781-7110.

Your technology is important, both in how you use it and you dispose of it. To go over these technology disposal options with our knowledgeable IT technicians, contact us today.

Remember that blender you got last holiday season that you let collect dust in the closet for a month? Maybe you decided to open it to view the instruction manual, then put it away since you would never, ever, actually use it. The only thing is, now that you actually want to use the manual, you can’t find it. Thankfully, the Internet, once again, is here to save the day, in the form of the online electronic manual.

Businesses always try to eliminate unnecessary costs, but printing isn’t necessarily everyone’s first idea of an unnecessary cost. With so much revenue being invested in paper, ink, and toner every year, just think of how many resources this can free up for your business if you could find a way to eliminate them from your budget. With the right technology solutions, you can easily cut costs on printing.

Most of the Internet's data is stored in data centers. Logistically, data centers are a great solution to store ridiculous amounts of data. However, from an environmental perspective, data centers may be doing more harm than good. This, according to a new report by the National Resources Defense Council.

Many people often associate the coming of spring with spring cleaning, or giving their house a good frisking. They use this opportunity to get rid of all of the junk they don't need anymore, such as useless wedding gifts or things they haven't touched, let alone seen, in years. The same thing can be done with your IT department at the workplace.

One of the greatest trends to hit business culture within the last few years has been going green, aka, being environmentally conscious. Companies that adopt green culture end up helping the Earth, improving their brand reputation, gaining tax credits, and attracting new green-minded customers. If you're considering going green, one of the easiest places to start is with your technology.

Smartphones and tablets are everywhere, and it's no secret that people are tied to their devices. App markets are filled with all types of software that, if used properly, can help manage every aspect of a person's life and connect them to databases filled with humanity's accrued knowledge. The polling professionals at Gartner found that over 1.2 billion such devices were purchased in 2013 alone. This boom gives innovators new markets to explore. XD Design is doing just that with their line of solar-powered chargers.

Today's business environment is environmentally conscious. Companies that implement green policies and use energy-saving technologies are making a positive impact on the environment. Going green is the responsible thing to do and will also positively impact your business. Here are three ways using green technology can benefit your business.