Recently, a business associate was getting rid of an old PC and wrote me about how to make absolutely sure the information off of that PC could never be found by anyone. After giving it some thought and a little research, I realized I had never before (looked for or) seen a straight-forward answer to this question so I thought I would share what I found. The remainder of this blog is my reply to her.

You may have noticed this past Wednesday morning that when you went to Facebook that the chat feature was not available. But did you know why? Well, a recent software release to the constantly evolving site contained a glitch. Logged in users, for a brief time, were able to access chat transcripts from their friends private chats with other people. To be clear, people could see chats that they were not involved in, as long as one of their friends participated in the chat.

As I have said in my earlier blog postings, I am fascinated by technology and how it affects marketing and how businesses interact with consumers. One of the biggest influences of today is social networking sites, namely Facebook. There is an amazing trend in the Facebook community right now that could shift the way some companies view the site’s uses.

Continuing along the lines of our Resource Center, another “hot” I.T. topic that is widely unknown or misunderstood among laymen business users is “cloud computing.” The origin of that jargon is simple—in diagramming solutions in our industry, the Internet is represented as a cloud. So the simple definition of cloud computing is using software and even network components (servers) over a connection to the Internet instead of the server and its software being physically located in your server closet.

If you have visited other parts of our site such as the Potential Employees page or the Message from the President page, you may have noticed how highly we value our employees. In our line of work, the developers and network engineers are our largest asset which makes finding the right people vital. In my experience of sifting through candidates to find the right fit for both a specific technical position and our organization in general, I have developed these five criteria that may come in handy to other I.T. managers looking for hiring advice:

This is an extension of my original “Too Legit” blog where I discussed the importance of your website in legitimizing your company. However, legitimizing your online presence extends further than just your website.

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I would like to imagine that in this day and age being too legitimate can’t possibly be a bad thing. Today, consumers are becoming more cautious of with whom they choose to do business. It is important that your company validate itself as a reputable organization from the get go.

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One of I.T. by Design’s core competencies is the creation of custom software, designed to give our client organizations a competitive advantage in their marketplace. And some of our competitors in the custom software industry have gone so far as to say any and all applications should be custom. I disagree strongly with this opinion. Here are five types of solutions that you should always buy “off the shelf” rather than re-inventing yourself or with a consultant.

Although I.T. by Design has been in business for almost six years, I have personally been doing professional I.T. work for over 15 years. Wow how time flies....

As a marketing professional who works for a technology company, I am intrigued by the way technology influences trends in marketing. These days, social networking sites have proven themselves to be stable and effective for reaching users, and small businesses and corporations alike are taking advantage of these tools.

With search engines quickly replacing the good ole phone book, it is important for businesses to make their websites search engine optimized or more commonly referred to as SEO. The purpose of optimizing your website is to get listed higher in the search results than competing websites. Here are a few quick tips that can help with this effort:

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This morning just after waking up I followed my usual routine and turned the TV onto ESPN-HD to see what Sports Center thinks of the Yankees-Red Sox feud. I then immediately grabbed my phone to check email, text messages, Facebook, and Twitter. I am definitely a digitally connected person. I run an I.T. outsourcing firm, so every day I am around similar high-tech, connected people.

Today Microsoft unveiled its newest version of its search engine, called Bing (www.bing.com). This engine is a highly visible, easy to access example of some web technologies that many in the area are not taking advantage of.

Just what the Internet needs, I know — another blogger. This is my first blog, and I have put some thought into what I will place in this little corner of the Internet. In this space I plan to talk about technology and business, and how the two are related. We employ plenty of smart people who will be able to dissect the technical aspects of our work — I will leave that to their blogs. So on to it then.