BlackCSI Blog

Communications are often the unsung hero in business operations, enabling all others to some degree. As a result, investing in the right tools can very much give your business a boost—and nowadays, the right tool for your communication needs is something called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, telephony.

Let’s go over what VoIP is, and why it’s the better option for your business.

On September 15, 1997, Google registered its domain and began its climb to the top of the search engine ladder. It began as a simple search engine, but since then it has seen immense growth as it continues to develop platforms and services through its parent company, Alphabet. There is a certain nostalgia attached to Google Search, and the company regularly includes little tidbits with the feature that people find fun: Easter Eggs.

What measures do you take to protect your employees and business from the dangers found on the Internet? One major company, Google, is implementing some extreme measures to protect against online threats. In this pilot program, the Internet is simply not available to its workers. How is Google—a company notorious for its search engine and web-related technology—making do with minimal access to the Internet? The answer might surprise you.

Your business’ bandwidth could reference a couple of different parts of your IT infrastructure, with the most notable being your network bandwidth and your Internet bandwidth. Today, we want to focus on demystifying your network bandwidth by answering all of the frequently asked questions you might have on the topic.

If you spend any amount of time on YouTube, chances are you’ve seen videos bring up the names of various sponsors, including consumer VPNs. VPN providers take advantage of the trendiness of these influencers to spread awareness of their products. We want to make one thing abundantly clear: the consumer VPNs offered by these sponsors are not the kind of VPN your business should be using.

Quick response codes, or QR codes, are all over the place in today’s business world. They have largely been implemented as a means of providing contactless services throughout the pandemic and post-pandemic business environment, but they have also long been used for things like menus, document access and management, and so on. Even cybercriminals are using QR codes to their advantage, making it harder for all of us to trust them.

Remember Google+? It was Google’s attempt at making a social media platform, and while it ultimately was not successful, it did have some interesting features that eventually made their way to other parts of Google’s growing list of business and enterprise services. Now, Google+’s legacy is in its final moments, as Google plans to shut down the Currents service this upcoming July.

With the Internet cementing itself as one of the best tools to get work done, it’s easy to forget just how sluggish it used to be back when it first became available for use. Internet speeds have undergone some dramatic shifts over the years, so let’s remember the good old days when it took ages to do just about anything with it.

We started this series on web browsers by focusing on the biggest of them all: Google. Now it’s time to look at some of the other options users have for their search engine needs. This time, we’re focusing on Bing, Microsoft’s proprietary search engine, and DuckDuckGo, a different search engine altogether.

You probably use Google more often than you think, but there are, of course, other search engines out there that perform similar functions. Why, then, is Google by far the most popular one? We’ll discuss some of the pros and cons of the various other search engines, but let’s start with Google itself.

It’s all well and good for us to recommend that you avoid phishing attacks and infected attachments simply by not clicking on the links in emails and other popular vectors of attacks, but the fact of the matter is that you might need to click on one at some point. In this case, it’s best to check the link before clicking it, and we’re here to offer tools to help you do so.

Some people shop almost exclusively online, and with the holidays gifting many folks gift cards, hackers are on the lookout for ways to exploit those who shop via the Internet. What can you do to stay safe while you are shopping online?

Most businesses use the Internet to conduct many of their day-to-day operations, and the most-used ways that people interact with the Internet is through web browsers. That said, there are some ways that you can make sure you are using the Internet in the most secure way possible. Here are some extra steps you can take to work toward these protections.

People are spending a lot of time online, especially as of late, with many working remotely and using tools and resources sourced through the Internet. In light of this, it seems to be an opportune time to review a few useful shortcuts that can help speed up one’s Internet browsing.

The more that people depend on mobile devices and portable computers to get work done, the more businesses have to consider how to manage their organization’s wireless network. The router is the piece of hardware that makes the wireless network possible. Today, we will talk a little bit about the router and how its configuration can dictate the strength, reliability, and security of your business’ wireless network.

During your time around computers, chances are high that you’ve heard the phrase “plain text” and the acronym “HTML” tossed around when it comes to your email. If you aren’t sure what these statements refer to, we’re here to help. Today, we’ll examine both HTML and plain text to produce a better understanding of these tech terms.