The ACCENT Learning Hub

Accent Computer Solutions, Inc. has been named a top Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) by Channel Futures, an IT industry organization. The criteria for this designation reflects the company’s aggressive investment in cyber security, as well as a commitment to meeting the needs for IT security and IT management on an ongoing basis.

It's not too early for business owners and managers to update their business plan for the coming year. Planning is necessary to not only make sure that you'll meet your 2019 goals, but to set up a realistic timeline for execution. For example, let’s just say that your 2019 goal is to add an additional million dollars to your business. How are you going to do that? What is going to be different about the way your business operates in order to make that happen? Can any functions be automated or outsourced? Will you be hiring any additional resources? Will you be moving or opening a new location?

Have you ever tried to go to sleep in a noisy place? Let’s say you’re on a plane and you want to catch some zzz’s before arriving at your destination. You try to drift off, but you hear the people talking in the seat behind you, the baby crying four rows ahead, and the high-pitched squeal of your air vent. Although you’re trying to sleep, your mind focuses on the noise in your environment, causing you to arrive at your destination just as tired as when you departed, plus annoyed and irritated that your plan to be well-rested for your meeting (or vacation, or your day) was disrupted.

As you may have heard, Microsoft will be saying its official goodbye to Windows 7 on January 14, 2020. The “end of life” of an operating system means that they will no longer be releasing any of the updates that keep it safe and secure.

If you are looking for a managed IT services price list, we might assume that you either know that you need to make a change in how you’re resourcing IT support or you’re wondering if you should be making a change. Either way, frustrations with IT are probably the catalyst for your research. If you’re like a lot of business owners and executives, you’ve lived with your IT problems for longer than you need to because you aren’t sure if there is anything better out there.

Want to make sure your smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices are as secure as possible? Check out this 90-second video tip from Chris, one of Accent’s vCIOs, with 3 tips to secure your mobile devices.

The best, and arguably the worst, thing about the rapid growth of technology is options. Long gone are the days where chocolate or vanilla were your only choices. In a post-Ben & Jerry’s world of Truffle Kerfuffle and Chubby Hubby, how are you supposed to know what to pick? And maybe the million-plus specialty ice cream flavors out there isn't exactly the same. But it’s easy to feel as overwhelmed by specialty ice cream as when you’re evaluating your server options.

I like watching professional magicians. I recently had the opportunity to see David Copperfield live at the MGM Grand and, I must admit, I found him absolutely amazing. When you watch him up close, it’s impossible to tell exactly what he does to create his extraordinary illusions.

Imagine that you get an invoice from a hospital for $125,000. No doubt you’ll experience sticker shock at the high cost of medical care. But wait a minute. This hospital is in a city that you have never visited, and it’s for a surgery that you never had. How did this happen? You’ve just become another victim of medical fraud. You can now expect to spend a few hundred hours of your life and thousands of dollars of your own money to clean up the mess that a cyber criminal made by stealing and using your medical records.

In a recent blog article, Marty Kaufman recounts the story of meeting with a business owner who was panicked and in crisis mode because of a cyber attack. If we could backtrack to the days, weeks and months before the attack, we would probably find that the business owner did not pay much attention to cyber security at all because he didn’t think that a data breach could happen to him. Well, it could, and it did. We can’t go back in time and undo all the damage that has been done by this cyber attack, but we can help other executives avoid stumbling over some common misconceptions that unknowingly increase cyber risk.