31478 Industrial Road Suite 200, Livonia, Michigan 48150 sales@xfer.com

XFER Blog

XFER Blog

XFER has been serving the Livonia area since 1994, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support, and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses.

Tip of the Week: Check When Your Devices Will Reach EOL

Tip of the Week: Check When Your Devices Will Reach EOL

Nobody likes the thought of the device they rely on daily suddenly dying, leaving them without a phone, a laptop, a smartwatch, or whatever the case may be. This is why it is important to stay conscious of when these devices are due to reach their end-of-life date, or EOL, when the manufacturer will no longer support them or provide crucial updates.

Fortunately, there’s a resource that makes this monitoring far easier to manage.

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A Cheat Sheet to Preparing for Business Disasters

A Cheat Sheet to Preparing for Business Disasters

When disaster strikes your business, it can cause a lot of problems; and many of them aren’t a direct result of the disaster itself. It’s for this reason it’s important to prepare your technology for a potential disaster. Here are four of the best ways to get your technology ready.

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Tip of the Week: Implement Android Archiving to Free Up Storage Space

Tip of the Week: Implement Android Archiving to Free Up Storage Space

In April 2023, Google made a statement claiming that the Android platform would be able to archive unused applications with the intention of preserving storage space on the device. This came with a caveat: it would only do so if the device was almost out of available space. This auto-archiving feature, however, was released to a pleasant little surprise; it is available to all users, regardless of how much storage space is left on the device.

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Tip of the Week: Basic Means of Securing Your Network

Tip of the Week: Basic Means of Securing Your Network

Your business’ network is critical to your operations, making it all the more important that you have it properly secured. Fortunately, there are a few relatively simple and straightforward ways to help do so. Let’s share some of the network security basics you need to prioritize.

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Tip of the Week: Batch Create Folders Using Microsoft Excel

Tip of the Week: Batch Create Folders Using Microsoft Excel

We know you don’t need to be reminded that the administrative part of your job is one of the more unpleasant bits, at least one of the more boring parts of your work. One task that is particularly dull is creating different folders for all your employees, projects, and organizational needs. Microsoft Excel, however, makes it much easier to handle this mundane task—and you’ll feel like a pro for using it in this way.

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Tip of the Week: How to Download Images from a Google Doc

Tip of the Week: How to Download Images from a Google Doc

Google Docs has been a worthy competitor to the ubiquitous Microsoft Word since the search engine giant launched the service in 2006. Since then, it’s been used by personal accounts and businesses as a fantastic alternative to the Microsoft Office suite. Google was able to beat Microsoft to the punch with a nearly fully-featured, browser-based document editor that allowed incredibly easy collaboration and sharing capabilities. However, there’s one little hang-up that people often run into when using Google Docs, and we’re going to show you how to overcome it.

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Tip of the Week: Translating a Gmail Message

Tip of the Week: Translating a Gmail Message

There are times when you might receive an email written in another language. Even if it’s unlikely, it helps to be able to translate a message for the rare time when you might receive one, particularly if your organization occasionally conducts business beyond your country’s borders. Let’s go over how you can use Gmail’s built-in translation functionality.

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Tip of the Week: Explaining Excel Formulas

Tip of the Week: Explaining Excel Formulas

Just under its surface, Microsoft Excel offers a massive variety of functions and features…far more than we could ever realistically cover in this blog. However, there are a few that stand out as relatively essential, particularly to businesses. Let’s go through these functions, starting with how to use them.

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Avoid MFA Fatigue Attacks by Minimizing Notifications

Avoid MFA Fatigue Attacks by Minimizing Notifications

While we strongly recommend that you put the security safeguard known as multi-factor authentication in place wherever it is available, it is important that we acknowledge that cybercriminals are frustratingly inventive. So much so, in fact, that a new form of attack has been developed to take advantage of MFA, referred to as MFA fatigue.

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Tip of the Week: Get Your Dismissed Notifications Back in Android

Tip of the Week: Get Your Dismissed Notifications Back in Android

Picture this scenario: you’re going about your day and get an important notification, only for that notification to, well, get cleared. You want to go back and check it so you don’t miss it. This is thankfully quite easy to do by viewing your Android notification history.

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Tip of the Week: Placing Your Router in the Ideal Spot

Tip of the Week: Placing Your Router in the Ideal Spot

Whether in the home or office, getting work done nowadays is very reliant on a reliable Wi-Fi signal. This makes it important to have your router placed in the right spot. Let's go over a few best practices so that you can set up your router in a place where it does you the most good.

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Tip of the Week: Take a Screenshot in Windows 10

Tip of the Week: Take a Screenshot in Windows 10

There is one key on the keyboard that might seem a little odd: PrtSc. It’s not immediately obvious what this key does or why you would want to use it, but we assure you that it is an extremely helpful keyboard shortcut once you understand how it works and why you might want to try it out. In reality, the PrtSc key is important for taking screenshots on your Windows device.

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Tip of the Week: The Letters of the Alphabet, in Windows Shortcuts

Tip of the Week: The Letters of the Alphabet, in Windows Shortcuts

The Windows operating system comes with more than its fair share of capabilities, many of which are accessible through the appropriate keyboard shortcut. Because remembering so many would be a challenge for some (and impossible for most) we’ve put together a list of those associated with the letters found on the keyboard, with a few extras tacked on for good measure. Make sure to take note of any you may find the most useful.

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Tip of the Week: The Better Way to Take a Screenshot on Windows

Tip of the Week: The Better Way to Take a Screenshot on Windows

For the Windows user seeking to take a screenshot, there is no lack of options. Most notably, many keyboards today offer a Print Screen key that allows the user to capture an image of their entire display. Having said this, there are better options, such as the platform’s integrated Snip & Sketch tool, with its greater functionality and greater ease of use.

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Tip of the Week: Rearranging Your Gmail Messages

Tip of the Week: Rearranging Your Gmail Messages

Email remains a popular tool in the business setting because of its undeniable usefulness in the office—but having said that, it can have its negative impacts on your productivity simply due to how much it can take to manage it appropriately. With so many messages that are crucial for you to keep track of coming through email, let’s go over a fancy trick to help you manage your messages in Gmail.

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Tip of the Week: Keep Track of Your Priority Gmails

Tip of the Week: Keep Track of Your Priority Gmails

Email is undeniably a useful tool, but it can be a real drag on productivity and a hindrance to manage. Then again, there are some messages that you absolutely need to keep track of as they contain sensitive information. Gmail makes keeping messages under your thumb simple.

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Tip of the Week: Embedding a YouTube Video into a PowerPoint Presentation

Tip of the Week: Embedding a YouTube Video into a PowerPoint Presentation

If you’re trying to share an idea in a presentation, adding a brief video clip can make it very simple to communicate with your audience. With this in mind, it is quite helpful that Microsoft PowerPoint makes it simple to embed a YouTube video directly into your presentation, whether you’re using PowerPoint 365 or PowerPoint 2016.

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Tip of the Week: Making Use of Chrome Actions

Tip of the Week: Making Use of Chrome Actions

As the most common Internet browser, Google Chrome is in a position where they always need to be coming up with new draws to maintain their hold on the market. Their latest efforts may help them to do so. Let’s take a moment and examine what Chrome is implementing, and how you can use it to your advantage.

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How to Host a Hamilton Party Online

How to Host a Hamilton Party Online

Hamilton had risen to be one of the most coveted theater tickets before the pandemic struck, having a low-end price tag of over $600, with a nine month wait. Now that the pandemic is in full swing, however, there is another option that enables you to catch the show.

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Are You Practicing Good Password Hygiene?

Are You Practicing Good Password Hygiene?

Passwords are not a modern invention by any stretch, but as we have dealt with them for so long, there are a lot of bad habits that many people have adopted. That’s why we felt that it was appropriate for us to call out some of these habits and discuss some better options for you to adopt.

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XFER Communications, Inc.
31478 Industrial Road Suite 200
Livonia, Michigan 48150