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Tis The Season To Set Goals

With the New Year upon us, if you haven’t already done so, it’s time to sit down and map out your business goals for 2016. As the captain of the ship, you, as a business owner obviously won’t create the final list in a vacuum, but if you haven’t already charted your course for the new year, there’s no time like the present, so grab a notebook and a pen, or your tablet and your favorite note-making tool, put your thinking cap on, and get started!

If it’s been a while since you’ve conducted this exercise, the main goal here is to be sure that the things you map out to accomplish over the course of the New Year are attainable and measurable.

Unless you’re a PC gamer, you might not even know what Steam is. It’s an online platform owned by Valve, Corporation for purchasing, downloading, and playing computer games. No need to go to your local tech shop, or the nearest Game Stop to buy a physical copy, you can just grab a digital copy on Steam.

A year and a half ago, Microsoft drew a line in the sand, making the pronouncement that January 12, 2016 would be the date of the last security patch for Internet Explorer versions lower than IE 9. Their recommendation is that all users upgrade either to Internet Explorer version 11, or the new Microsoft browser, “Edge.

As internet devices go, PCs, laptops, and handhelds are all pretty secure, which may sound strange, given the number of successful hacks we’ve seen this year. They’re loaded with security features that make them relatively robust, and able to fend off a variety of attacks.

People have been touting the advantages of The Cloud for months. It became one of this year’s hottest buzzwords. In particular, cloud-based storage really came into its own, and literally millions of people began taking advantage of the generous storage offers put forth by the industry’s major players.

Microsoft is making another play for the mobile market, having recently released the Lumina 950 and 950XL, running on the Windows 10 Mobile platform. Cost wise, they’re a bit more expensive than the products with which they’re competing, which may make them non-starters for some.

When we think about seniors, we often think about older people who are totally out of touch with technology. The reality is a bit different. Consider someone who’s turning 65 today, as you’re reading this. He or she has probably spent the greater part of his or her career working with and using technology on a daily basis.

By now, almost everyone knows and understands how important security is at every level, from your network as a whole, to your individual PC. What many people may not know is that if you upgraded to Windows 10, your new OS was pretty generous in terms of allowing applications to access…well, pretty much anything they wanted.

Landry’s Has Been Hacked

Landry’s Restaurants, owner of more than 40 well-known brands around the world, such as Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., Chart House, Claim Jumper, Landry’s Seafood, Mastro’s Restaurants, McCormick & Schmick’s, The Steakhouse, Rainforest Café, and others, was hacked, adding their name to the ever-growing list of companies breached in 2015.

The company first noted the breach when they began receiving reports of unauthorized transactions on credit and debit cards used legitimately at some of their restaurants.

Time for a little news of the gross, but the good thing is, hearing this report could make your office a healthier place to work. Recently, a British microbiologist did a comparative study, swabbing a toilet seat, and comparing the amount of microbes found there with the number found to be living in keyboards.