3 Ways to Get a Better Wi-Fi Signal at Work or at Home

Chances are you’re still spending a lot of time at home, and a lot of that time is being spent on the Internet. With so many still working remotely, and many educational institutions continuing remote learning, the strength of a household’s Wi-Fi signal is going to be crucial. We wanted to offer you some tips to help you maximize the signal strength of your router.

By the way, the following would all apply to the office as well. So, don’t hesitate to use some of these tricks in the workplace.

Elevated, Centralized Placement

For your business to use the Internet wirelessly, your router needs to be able to get the signal to every device used in your day-to-day processes. This means that the signal should have as unobstructed a path as possible to, once again, every device.

To accomplish this, it helps to avoid as many obstacles to the signal as possible. While not all obstacles can be avoided, you should make sure that you eliminate as many as possible. One great way of doing so is to strategically place your router in a centralized place in your business, elevated above most barriers. This will help keep your coverage relatively consistent throughout the workspace.

Keep It Away from Clutter

On a related note, these signals can be blocked by obstacles of all sizes. So, while placing the router on top of a cabinet in the middle of the office will keep Rob’s desk from blocking the signal, stacking extra supplies around it will create just as much difficulty. Other devices and even wires can seriously disrupt the wireless connection.

Try to keep the area around your router relatively clear. Not only will this help preserve a stable signal, it will help keep heat from building up there and causing other problems with your equipment down the line.

Augment with Extenders, or a Second Router

Let’s say that router placement or clutter isn’t so much the problem, and it’s more of a problem of scope… your router just doesn’t get the signal to all of your employees, or the number of employees you have just clogs up the signal.

There are a few ways to potentially fix these issues. First, you could extend the range of your Wi-Fi signal using signal extenders. If you need to make more connections, you can add an additional router to your network as well.

Net Activity is here to assist you with your IT, from building the infrastructure that meets your needs to yes, helping you set up your wireless network. Give us a call at 216-503-5150 to learn more about how we can help.

The Right Way to Test your Company’s Disaster Preparedness

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

This quote is frequently attributed to Benjamin Franklin, and while it may not have actually been said by the Founding Father, it still teaches a valuable lesson – especially where disaster recovery is concerned. In other words, you need to make sure you have a working disaster recovery strategy – working being the key point.

To do that, you need to make sure that your backup and disaster recovery plans are effective, which in turn means you need to test them.

What Kind of Disasters Do You Need to Prepare For?

The first step to an effective disaster recovery strategy is to be prepared for as many scenarios as possible, as there are a wide variety of circumstances that could create a problem for your business.

• User Errors – While many user errors may be viewed as minor inconveniences, there are plenty of ways that a disaster can result from a simple mistake on the part of one of your users. Accidental deletions, shadow IT, and other common enough scenarios can all put your business in a bad place if you aren’t prepared.
• Key Staff Unavailability – What would happen if someone with exclusive access to key data was suddenly kept from the office, either due to some accident, a personal emergency, or some other situation? If they had exclusive access to critical business information or documents, you may find yourself stuck.
• Equipment Failures – Any business today relies on a lot of equipment, from the machines that power their processes to the infrastructure that supports them, the technologies they use to maintain communications to the basic functions of their location like lighting and HVAC. There are also a lot of ways that the equipment you rely upon could fall short, interrupting your processes.
• Malware – Malware has been a threat to businesses for a long time, evolving from the basic viruses that once plagued systems to the advanced threats that we see today. Adding to the threat is the fact that these attack vectors are constantly updated, meaning you have to stay vigilant against these threats.
• Natural Disasters – These are likely the first threats that pop into your mind when you think of a disaster that needs to be recovered from. Every place on the planet is susceptible to some kind of natural disaster, whether it’s a hurricane, earthquake, flood, high winds… you just need to identify your biggest risk, based on your location, and prioritize your preparations accordingly.
• The Unexpected – There are plenty of potential situations that don’t really fit into any of the other types we went over but can still cause big problems for your business. While these scenarios are hard to predict by definition, you should do your best to be prepared for any situation.

How to Be Sure You’re Properly Prepared

In a word: testing.

There are a variety of preparations and evaluations you should routinely go through in order to be sure that your disaster recovery strategy is sufficient. Why routinely? Simple – while it may be the one that is updated the quickest, malware isn’t the only threat that develops over time. Take user errors, for example: new employees are likely going to be unaware of many threats at first, and the most accurate way to find out what they know is to evaluate them. There are even different means of evaluating your employees, which should be combined into a comprehensive test and delivered on a periodic basis.

These tests should be designed to evaluate both the technical side of your disaster recovery process and your team’s ability to carry it out. As you collect data from these tests, you should update the plan to resolve any issues that may have become apparent, as well as keep your test airtight and devoid of any weak points.

Tests that You Should Run

Like we said, there are assorted evaluation processes that your employees should all go through on a semi-regular basis. These include the following:

1. Walkthrough Test: This is simply a basic review of the plan, reading it over to ensure that everyone involved remains updated to any possible changes that may have been made.
2. Tabletop Test: Similar to a tabletop game, someone from each department comes in and is given a hypothetical disaster scenario. Each team member should explain what they would do in their given scenario. This is useful in revealing possible shortcomings in a business’ existing strategy.
3. Parallel Test: These tests are meant to evaluate how well the restoration process works, using a virtual machine to “restore” your system, which continues to run in your usual infrastructure
4. Full Interruption Testing: This test is one of the most in-depth, but also the most risk-laden, as it could lead to actual downtime. In fact, some industries have regulations barring this kind of test, so be sure to double-check with your IT resource that this option is available to you.

Disaster recovery is a critically important process for any business; to make sure you are on the right track download our Business Continuity Essentials Guide below.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind (so Clear your Desktop Now)

It’s simple, really: if your desktop is messy, then it’s more difficult to use. Don’t waste time and energy struggling to function — literally clean up your act by heeding our tips on decluttering your desktop.

1. Arrange, sort, and prioritize

Before you go about deleting everything from your desktop, think about what you really want to keep. This will vary from person to person, but most people use their desktop for storing files, folders, and app shortcuts that they want to access quickly.

Take the time to prioritize your files and folders. An easy way to do this is to right-click on an empty area of your desktop (where there are no icons) and select Auto arrange icons. This will organize your icons into a grid format that makes it easier for you to see and work with them. Then, right-click on the empty space and hover your mouse over Sort by and select Date modified to arrange the icons by the date they were last opened, with the latest on top.

2. Create a folder for holding files and another for keeping app shortcuts

People often use their desktop to hold files like downloads, photos, screenshots, and even email attachments. This can lead to a messy desktop in a short period of time.

In truth, you probably don’t need all these shortcuts on your desktop. Instead, create a folder on your desktop that will serve as your dumping ground for all your nonessential files and folders.

If you don’t intend to keep a file, icon, photo, etc. for long, put it in this folder. Revisit this folder every once in a while to delete the files you no longer need.

It also helps if you create a shortcut folder. When you install new programs on Windows, a shortcut icon is often automatically added to your desktop. However, these desktop shortcuts should be for frequently used programs only. Create a separate folder for programs that aren’t used that often.

3. Be ruthless in cleaning

Once you have your folders set up, it’s time to get rid of the clutter. If you haven’t used a file, folder, etc. in the past two months or so, you should seriously consider getting rid of it.

Examine your desktop and be ruthless in cleaning:

• Uninstall programs you no longer use.
• Delete unimportant files, such as screenshots you no longer need.
• Place the rest in relevant folders.

Once you’ve completed these, check your browser to see where it stores downloaded files. If your browser downloads files onto your desktop by default, go to Settings and change the target location to the Downloads folder.

4. Maintain order

Once you have decluttered your desktop, you must stick to the rules you’ve made. Whenever you download something, ask yourself whether this should go to the desktop, your dumping folder, or someplace else.

Of course, sticking with these rules won’t always be easy, so take time once or twice a month to revisit your desktop and clean it up a bit.

5. Use the taskbar or Start menu for apps

With Windows 10, you can pin apps to the Start menu and the taskbar. This is a great alternative to having program shortcuts on your desktop. To pin apps, open your apps list (i.e., click the Start menu icon at the bottom left corner of the screen) and right-click on the application you would like to pin. Simply select Pin to Start or Pin to taskbar for the option you want.

6. Choose a wallpaper you love looking at

An interesting way to minimize clutter is to pick a wallpaper that you enjoy looking at — whether it’s your favorite slogan, a photo of your family, or a picture of your dream house, car, or destination. Having an image you like serves as a reminder to keep icons to a minimum, so if you can’t see the image anymore, then you have too many icons, and it may be time to get rid of a few.

If you are looking to learn more about using Windows in your office, contact us today to see how we can help.