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There is a lot of truth in the cliché “You’ll attract more bees with honey than vinegar.” This is especially true when working with professional consultants.

Quite often, business owners take an adversarial approach to working with their vendors.

If you’re planning on heading out of town – or simply to the coffee shop to work – here are a few tips to keep in mind.

1. Protect your devices from thieves. All mobile devices should be passcode-protected and loaded with apps that will help you track and find them in case they get lost or stolen.

Ahhhh! A brand new year, full of promise, hope and a fresh start. If you’re like most people, you’re making the usual resolutions to exercise, lose weight, pay off debt, etc., etc., etc. Essentially, it’s that time of year when we momentarily take stock in our lives and think about all the things we “should” be doing more of, but don’t. So while you’re in the goal-setting mode, we thought we would tack on 3 things that probably aren’t on your list, but should be.

December is known around the world as a family time of celebration honoring cultures, religions and traditions that have been with humanity for hundreds of years. See below for a mix of the weird and wonderful facts about this magical month!

An almanac prediction states that if snow falls on Christmas Day, Easter will be warm, green and sunny.

As part of its “Technology For Good” program, Microsoft has recently announced that it is giving away Microsoft Office 365 software licenses for free to qualified nonprofit organizations. Office 365 is Microsoft’s cloud-based software solution that allows users to run office applications, e-mail, calendars, video conferencing and more all through the web.

Most business owners know that it is important for their servers to be backed up. But what about your desk computers and other critical workstations? Though it’s true that quite a bit of your data is stored on your servers and backed up, your workstations with all of your settings, your local data files, music and pictures you have stored, and all of your software applications are probably NOT being backed up.

There’s no doubt about it:... e-mail has become the single most important communication tool for businesses. But messages pile up quick, taking up storage space that can be expensive to back up. And since deleting everything isn’t always an option when certain threads contain important info about projects, contracts and client communications, the smartest option is to archive your inbox.

As you may have heard, Microsoft announced the retirement of its most successful software platform of all time, Windows XP. Effective April 8, 2014, Microsoft will no longer support the Windows XP platform .

What this means if you are currently running XP

This means any computer with Windows XP installed will be completely exposed to serious hacker attacks aimed at taking control of your network, stealing data, crashing your system and inflicting a host of other business-crippling problems you do NOT want to have to deal with.

You use your iPhone or Android for everything else. Your spouse even texts you to grab some milk at the store or to tell you they’ll be gone when you get home. It’s quick, easy and gets the job done. Why not in business too? If you’re going to text for business purposes, follow these 7 texting tips to keep it professional:

Consider if your message is urgent.

A question that seems to come up a lot lately with clients, is “How should I properly budget for IT expenses?” While this is a great question, there are a lot of variables that determine the answer, so I can’t provide a “one-size-fits-all,” simple answer.