It isn’t 2003 anymore, when just about all you had was Internet Explorer and more than one window open meant risking the blue screen of death. Fortunately, times have changed, and with those changes come more productivity tools. You may not have thought of the browser tab as a tool of productivity, but we guarantee that after reading this piece you will think otherwise.

Email scams, or “phishing,” are some of the most popular ways that scammers try to steal information from individuals and small businesses alike. Unfortunately for us, these scams are not always obvious and are sometimes not detected by a spam catcher.

As the number of businesses that allow workers to work from home or hire them remotely in the first place has grown, the number of ways to have effective meetings has begun to grow as well. Many companies are completely replacing their physical meetings with digital ones as they are more efficient, quicker, and people can collaborate from all over the world.

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, is at it again with something more than just cars. In fact, he’s been busy cooking up something that may revolutionize the way businesses and homes use power, and it’s called the Powerball (and, for businesses, it’s called the Powerpack).

The Powerball and Powerpack are, in essence, batteries.

As the social media channels you need to manage grow, so does your need for the time to manage them. Sometimes you can’t quite find the time yourself, and you need to pass the hat on to somebody else. Occasionally, this means hiring a social media manager – someone who not only responds to inquiries, but helps your social media pages grow.

Have you taken advantage of automation yet? Automation is part of modern workspaces today and will be the benchmark for profitable businesses in the near future. Not only does automation drive sustainable business, it minimizes risk and is often called a process that is ‘win-win’ and ‘doesn’t have a downside’. Organizations everywhere have been more empowered to save time and money with automation.

Not too long ago, “Mobilegeddon” began, triggered by Google’s new mobile-friendly ranking algorithm that gives a significant boost to websites that have taken the steps to be more mobile-friendly.

The change took about a week to complete, and now that it’s complete, small and large businesses alike need to make sure their web pages are friendly enough for Google.

Say your SMB is still doing mail-out campaigns, and you’re still spending all that money on postage. You still do paper invoices. You still print everything out so you can collaborate on projects. You are a paper-fiend, and honestly, it’s costing you a pretty penny.

You probably know by now that protecting your small business from threats is absolutely essential, and even if you haven’t taken the steps to have an off-site backup or an on-board IT helper, you’ve probably done your best with your resources and installed the free software available to small businesses.

We know that as an SMB, you have a budget – and you have to stretch that budget each and every month to ensure you can keep conducting business. Sometimes this means not upgrading something when you would otherwise do so. Sometimes it means foregoing that business trip you wanted to take and sometimes it means eliminating or severely shrinking the budget you have for security purposes.