by Felicien | Nov 20, 2018 | Education
As individuals, we’ve been using 4G LTE to connect to the internet for years. 4G LTE can benefit all school districts, and it is a particularly good choice for districts with schools in a wide or rural geographic area. It also offers a type of flexibility that wired connectivity doesn’t have. But how can this mobile wireless technology benefit school districts, from students to faculty and staff?
How Can 4G LTE on School Buses Strengthen Districts?
Some school districts are installing 4G LTE on their school bus fleets with program names like “WiFi on Wheels.” Each bus in the fleet receives an in-vehicle LTE wireless solution that can be used while students are riding the bus to and from school.
The most prominent results from “WiFi on Wheels” initiatives are coming from school districts in widespread, poor, and rural areas. One California school district’s 100-bus fleet covers 1,250 square miles.
Many of the district’s students lacked internet access at home and also had long bus rides. After implementing 4G LTE on district buses, students became more academically engaged. In one year, graduation rates in the district increased from 70 to 80 percent.
4G LTE on buses has also been shown to increase student safety and reduce incidences of violence and bullying. From a resource management perspective, 4G LTE on school buses supports telematics to improve cost-efficiency and GPS that shows the location of buses at all times for fleet management.
Can 4G LTE Strengthen School Communications and IT Support?
Districts with widespread facilities and campuses can use 4G LTE to manage digital signage and communications. Instead of localized programming, district-wide messages can be sent instantly.
Remote tech support and troubleshooting can also be improved by 4G LTE technology. Wireless 4G LTE networks can enable remote solutions and inter-school conferencing.
If your district uses sites that aren’t typically connected to the internet, like gyms, sports complexes, and temporary classrooms, 4G LTE enables these buildings and locations to be flexibly included in the school network as needed.
How Can 4G LTE Benefit Campus Safety and Security?
In the same way that districts implement “WiFi on Wheels” on buses, campus safety vehicles can use 4G LTE for communications, monitoring, and reporting. Security and real-time communications for students, faculty, and staff can be supported through 4G LTE cameras and other monitoring devices.
Because 4G LTE technology is wirelessly delivered, security within the system is also important to prevent intrusion and hacking. 4G LTE technology enables districts to isolate their own data and cloak any personal information that’s going through the district’s devices. The district can define its own information perimeter using software, limiting the network’s use to authorized students and staff.
How can Wireless WANs Support Parents and Student Volunteers?
Parent groups who are holding music, athletic, recreational, cultural or theater events can use the network remotely to process credit card payments. Student leadership groups can process payments for dances, campus events, and year-end activities. 4G LTE technology enables these transactions and events to be conducted safely and securely.
There are many good reasons to consider 4G LTE technology for school districts and campuses. From improving school bus safety and increasing student academic performance to connecting remote campuses and enabling remote IT support, connecting a district and all of the people in it with 4G LTE can be an effective, efficient communications choice.
by Felicien | Nov 20, 2018 | Education
Look around you. Your desk lamp, your headphones, that smartphone in your hands — everything you own and use daily was created in the mind of an entrepreneur.
Sure, it may be mass-produced now, but at one time, every item in existence had to be thought up, created, and marketed for the very first time. It took the innovative and productive mind of a special entrepreneur to do that.
Today, entrepreneurs still exist as they always have, but because of mass production, globalism, big box stores, and yes, the Internet, they’re not as celebrated as they once were. Entrepreneurs’ Day is bringing back the much-deserved admiration and appreciation of the entrepreneur.
Below, learn exactly what Entrepreneurs’ Day is, how it started, and how you can celebrate this 2018!
What Is Entrepreneurs’ Day and Why Is It Special?
Entrepreneurs’ Day is a day that celebrates the men and women in this country who are able to build something out of nothing. Entrepreneurs certainly think up, produce, and market the things you use, collect, have fun with, and eat on a daily basis. But they’re much more than that.
Entrepreneurs are special because of their innovation and creativity, but they also create jobs and spur the economy. Many entrepreneurs help small- and medium-sized towns grow and develop. They give opportunities to those that might not otherwise have them, and they donate to and care for their communities. Entrepreneurs have built what you see today.
Sadly, there are fewer new business ideas sprouting up around the United States today than ever before. Often, this is because small businesses who make an attempt to get off the ground aren’t able to earn enough to maintain their footing. Building a business out of nothing is certainly no easy task.
Entrepreneurs’ Day aims to change all of this by uplifting and celebrating entrepreneurs. It’s a day to pay tribute to these amazing businessmen and women — and maybe even become one yourself.
When Is Entrepreneurs’ Day?
Entrepreneurs’ Day is always on the third Tuesday of November. In 2018, Entrepreneurs’ Day will be celebrated on Tuesday, November 20th.
History of Entrepreneurs’ Day
The term entrepreneur was first coined by French economist Jean-Baptiste Say in 1800 to denote someone who “shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.” Entrepreneurs’ Day began in 2012 when President Barack Obama declared the month of November in the United States to be National Entrepreneurship Month.
Top Ways to Participate in Entrepreneurs’ Day
When you’re an entrepreneur yourself …
1. Get together with other entrepreneurs in your area.
Form a club or organization where local entrepreneurs can share their ideas and new concepts they’d like to bring forth. Even if it’s just an informal get-together, it’s a way to begin an important dialogue among entrepreneurs in your community.
2. Mentor another entrepreneur.
If you’ve successfully gotten off the ground as an entrepreneur in your own industry, consider mentoring someone else who is just beginning. Give them advice, shout out their product or service on your own social media pages, or just give them a pat on the back and some inspiration and motivation to keep moving forward.
3. Have a celebration!
If you own your own startup small business or are just starting out with a new product or service, celebrate Entrepreneurs’ Day by offering your customers and clients special discounts or a fun event. Even if your budget isn’t up for deals and sales quite yet, you can have an open house with cookies and punch or do a small giveaway of some sort to celebrate the day.
When you’d like to support entrepreneurs …
1. Shop with entrepreneurs in your area.
Shopping for holiday gifts or birthday presents? Looking for new clothes or items for your kitchen? Don’t go to the big box stores or the Internet this time. Shop with local entrepreneurs. Alternatively, if there aren’t any start-up small businesses in your community, you can certainly connect with entrepreneurs online who aren’t part of big-box chains.
2. Thank an entrepreneur
Know someone who has started their own business in the past or is hoping to in the future? Give them a shout out “thank you!” on social media, or thank them in person.
3. Talk about it!
Finally, remember that Entrepreneurs’ Day exists and persists largely by word-of-mouth, so spread the word! You can use social media on the days leading up to Entrepreneurs’ Day to tell your friends, family, and followers about this day — and of course, use the suggestions listed above to celebrate yourself when November 20throlls around!
by Felicien | Nov 20, 2018 | Education
National Broadband Network outages or NBN outages are usually focused on coastal Australian areas, which means all our major cities like Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, Adelaide, Camberwell, Ryde, Marrickville, Parramatta, and Windsor according to Aussie Outages. If your business services are affected by NBN outages on a regular basis, there may be technology steps you can take to prevent them, or at the very least get your network services up and running faster.
Of course, NBN has to prioritise reconnection of certain essential services in an outage, including:
Hospitals
Fire
Police
Emergency services
Community infrastructure such as:
Traffic management
Sewerage
Power utilities
Water utilities
In an NBN outage, the NBN will also prioritise reconnection of business services essential to community recoveries, such as banks, petrol stations, and supermarkets. If your business services fall into one of these categories, you’re in luck in the Lucky. If not, you may want to educate yourself about options.
What Causes NBN Access Network Outages?
NBN access network connections may occur for different reasons, such as cyclones, severe storms, bushfires, car accidents, or tree branches falling onto power lines in your neighborhood. While NBN has a dedicated emergency response team that prepares for, responds to, and recovers network connections in emergencies, its priorities may not be yours, leaving your business services in the lurch along with your clients and your income.
What Can You Do About NBN Outages?
Although NBN outages can be crippling, technology services companies may have the solution business services owners, C-level executives, and managers have been searching for. A better modem is that solution. Recently released modems allow customers like your business to keep using landline phones and internet during fixed-line broadband outages. With these newly updated modems, phone and internet landline services are automatically diverted to the technology services company’s mobile network following a fixed-lined business broadband outage.
How Can Telstra Help During NBN Outages?
Technology services companies’ updated modems essentially keep your business services in play through the use of another mobile network. For instance, if your employees are on the phone when the NBN is disrupted, they can resume making and receiving calls as soon as the internet connection switches across to the telco network. These new modems still require battery backup during a power outage, but your business should not pay extra for mobile data use during the fixed-line outage. Speeds are generally capped at 6 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. Voice calls are charged at standard rates for landline phones.
With these new modems, landline calls take advantage of the mobile Voice over LTE standard and use Quality of Service to reserve necessary bandwidth for voice — call quality will not suffer when the internet is being used. Whilst running over the telco’s mobile broadband network, your business will not lose income or clients.
How Can My Business Obtain a Telstra Gen 2 Modem?
New, updated modems are available from most telcos if your service is NBN, DSL, or cable, and should be on sale now. Keep in mind older modem models will receive voice fallback via a firmware upgrade in 2019, anyhow. There are over 600,000 older modems in Australia, and voice fallback will only be available to NBN customers.
What are the Benefits of Using a New Modem?
The best benefit is that new modems will not kill your landline. They also allow telcos to meet obligations to provide interim broadband service to customers when NBN connections are delayed, and when telcos are unable to reconnect Australia’s business services with their legacy broadband connects. Essentially, a new modem can save your business headaches later and preserve your telco connection while you serve your clients.
by Felicien | Nov 19, 2018 | Education
Did you know that the new iPad Pro sports more powerful features than most entry-level laptops in stores today?
Yes, the iPad is powerful but can it replace a computer?
Is the iPad a tablet or a computer?
This is a question that has been asked repeatedly since the iPad Pro was first released in 2015. With the debut of the latest iPad Pro in 2017 with the more robust iOS 11, improved multitasking and better file management, choosing between a MacBook and an iPad has been made more difficult for mobile users.
Apple advertises the iPad Pro as a replacement for laptops. Looking at some of the videos posted by Apple on YouTube, mobile users are convinced that the device can (almost) do everything a laptop can. So, is it time to ditch your laptop for an iPad? Read on to learn more.
What can the iPad do?
The Apple iPad Pro works like a computer. The device comes with either a 10.5-inch or 12.9-inch display with the smaller version being bigger than the standard iPad’s 9.7-inch display. With this larger display, the iPad renders colors better than most mid-level laptops, and it has a faster chip to power heavy graphics, paint and video apps. By all accounts, the iPad Pro is better than all other iPad models especially considering the add-ons it comes with.
Coupled with the best keyboard, iPad Pro gives you the best experience drawing, writing, editing videos and much more.
When can the iPad replace a computer for small businesses?
The most common tasks small businesses carry out on laptops and desktop PCs are the same that the iPad Pro is designed to excel in. These tasks include surfing the web, taking notes, reading and replying emails, balancing the checkbook, writing, editing and publishing online, engaging leads on social media and keeping records.
With the new iPad Pro, productivity has been made easier with the virtual touchpad letting you manipulate text with ease. The iPad has been engineered to support Microsoft Office and comes with a free version of Apple iWork letting you create documents straight out of the box. If your office work involves a lot of typing, you can connect a Bluetooth keyboard and type a lot faster.
Not only can the iPad perform almost all tasks a laptop can but it can do some even better. The iPad comes with a back camera allowing you to film a movie with ease. After filming, you can edit the video right on the iPad. Connecting to the internet while on the go, you do not necessarily need Wi-Fi since you can connect it with your smartphone with ease.
The iPad is a portable gaming device thanks to its high resolution and high-end graphics. While it cannot match X-BOX One or PlayStation 4, the device is in the same ranks as XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3. The iPad also works with different illustration apps giving artists an easy time creating.
What can’t the iPad do?
Even with all its great features, the iPad still has some limitations. One of the reasons iPad Pro might not replace your laptop is of your business uses a proprietary software not found on iPad. While most businesses today are using cloud-based solutions, which means most of the software are build on the web, there are still many of them that rely on software that needs Microsoft Windows.
Any application that you require on your laptop or desktop PC will require a replacement on your iPad. While this is easy for web browsing, writing, and email, it is difficult for other software. The iPad has been updated making it better at video editing, which means you will not miss iMovie. However, businesses that deal with professional video editing might still need more powerful video editing software not available on iPad.
Storage is another issue for the iPad. The iPad Pro can have storage of up to 256, but this still does not compete with the storage offered by most laptops. While the iPad can run a lot of apps, you can only store the limited number of videos in it.
For some users, a 12.9-inch display is still small for the tasks they carry. This is especially true for artists who love multitasking and working on different screens.
Figure out whether you need to replace your computer
Apple’s iPad Pro can replace your computer. If you are not sure whether you should replace your laptop with iPad Pro, you are ready to test it for a week or two. In most cases, the iPad will suffice whether a laptop would be needed. However, you might need to have your laptop in case there is software you need once or twice a month on it.
With more improvements, the iPad Pro will mirror a laptop in all aspects.
by Felicien | Nov 19, 2018 | Education
As a business that relies on or drives technology, the best equipment is key to success in any industry. How do you know which hardware is the best for your business? Let’s take a look at one of the basics of computer hardware, the two different types of drives. We’ll look at each drive, then compare the two so you can make the best decision for your business or IT department now and in the future.
The first things to know about computer drives is that they store your precious information in very different ways. That said, each drive has its own positives and negatives, and deciding on the best drive for your business depends on what your computers or devices are being used for.
What is a Hard Disk Drive?
Hard disk drives (HDDs) are the original drives; solid state drives didn’t show up on the scene until much later. HDD are made up of one or more magnetically sensitive platters that look like DVDs. Each platter has an actuator arm with a read/write head and a motor to spin the platters and move the arms when necessary. The I/O controller and firmware lets the hardware know how to function and also communicates with the rest of the computer or device.
How Do HDDs Work?
Just like DVDs and CDs, the platters have tracks or concentric circles. The tracks consist of sectors that each have unique addresses used to locate and organize the data you put on the computer or device. Firmware efficiently detects and corrects data errors before writing it on the platters utilizing an algorithm. Preset speeds for home use HDD platters are 4200-7200 rpms, although they will be higher for businesses who need higher read/write rates to process data faster.
What are the Drawbacks & Benefits of HDDs?
HDDs have several drawbacks due to the mechanical pieces that find data, as they can break. Additionally, finding data this way is more time-consuming than electronic methods, like those the solid-state drives use. Just like a record player, HDDs can skip or refuse to work at all if they are dropped suddenly or not taken care of. Laptops are particularly susceptible to this issue. HDDs are generally less expensive that SDDs and have the same amount of storage space or more.
What is a Solid State Drive?
A solid state drive (SDD) is newer than HDDs and rely on non-volatile memory to store data electronically. Non-volatile means the data remains on the device or computer when it’s turned off. SDDs resemble USB drives but are more substantial. Both pieces of tech use the same technology to function, known as NAND. NAND is flash memory that stores data in gates organized in a grid pattern. Blocks are composed of grids, and grids are composed of pages. Instead of a read/write arm, the SSD controller keeps track of data locations.
SSDs use a more complicated process to update data, and all data in a block must be refreshed at once if any is updated. Old data is erased after being moved to a different block, and new information is rewritten with changes in a new block. Whenever an SSD drive is idle, “garbage collection” completes this process of throwing out the old while bringing in the new. TRIM prevents premature wear and tear on an SSD by noting when rewriting can be skipped with some data.
What are the Drawbacks & Benefits of SDDs?
SSDs have their own set of drawbacks and benefits. SSDs are more expensive than HDDs due to new technology, and it can be challenging to find enough storage on SSDs if you need a significant amount. In general, HDDs may hold about 2.5 times more data. SSDs are fantastic for games, apps, movies, and videos because they load much faster, weigh less, and can withstand more abuse. SSDs are much cooler because they use much less energy than HDDs.
Should You Choose and HDD or an SDD?
If you need large amounts of storage and are not concerned about portability or video or gaming capability, HDDs are best for your line of business. If you’re more video or gaming focused, then SDDs may be right for you. Ultimately, the individual demands of your particular business will help you decide which type of drive to use, or whether you need to migrate to a different kind of drive to accommodate your business.
