The Components Of A Truly Great Blog

So, you want to start a blog. You likely already have an idea of what you want your blog to be on, whether it’s for personal use, branding, or building a blog arm to your business’s website. Whatever the aim is, there are four components that every blogger needs to get in the pot if they want it to truly be successful. Let’s dig in and see which ingredients you haven’t considered.

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Content

This shouldn’t be a surprise. To run a successful blog, you have to be able to successfully write content. The truth is that this can be one of the surprisingly most difficult parts for a lot of different bloggers. Being able to talk on a subject is different from being able to consistently write quality posts with pulling power, especially if you want to monetize those posts. Turn content creation from an art into a part of your work. Create a content pipeline where you’re constantly writing down ideas for content, testing them for what value they offer the reader, doing your research, and then finally putting them together. That means you will constantly have fresh content on the go, rather than being caught short and having to put out something low-quality.

Visuals

No-one is going to read your posts if they can’t stand how your website looks, either. This is no longer web 1.0, and having a bare-bones visual style to the site doesn’t cut it. Finding a unique blogging them nowadays is easier than ever with plenty of free templates as well as affordable visual designers around. BloggingTips shows that your visual strategy has to go beyond site design as well. It’s well known by now that readers tend to get their attention caught by blog posts with plenty of pictures. You should even be willing to occasionally turn a piece of info heavy content into an infographic to get it across in a more visual style.

Usability

This comes in two parts. First of all, site design. Keeping navigation simple and not clogging up side bars with unnecessary options is essential to make it easy for visitors to know where they’re going. On the other hand, you have to think about how well the site works, well. Before going with the first host that pops out at you, consider what kind of data you need and what framework to work with sites like MangoMatter. If you fail to choose a host that fits your requirements, you might have a slow site with dead links turning away readers left and right.

Community

Your readers are everything. The blogger who forgets that are soon going to lose those readers. Keep interacting them on as regular a basis as possible and build a real online community. Reply to those comments on your posts. Keep up with social media not only to share your content but to curate others content and stay in contact with your most avid readers. Consider other parts of the blogging world, too. Partnering up for guest posts and cross-promotion is a great way to add prestige to your blog as well as to reach the audiences of other writers

A blog has to be readable, usable, easy on the eyes, and engaged with its community. If you’re not able to manage all of those, then perhaps a blog isn’t the right direction to take your idea.

Steve Jobs Wanted a Permanent Back Button On iPhone

The familiar circular button is the first thing that comes to mind about the appearance of your favorite iPhone. Steve Jobs wanted another button to be a part of the design with the home button. This was revealed in a new book titled ‘The One Device: The Secret History of iPhone’. Imran Chaudhry, an ex-designer at Apple revealed this fact that Steve jobs wanted an additional back button in the design. This would have made the phone work like android with a back button. This idea was not perused and we have the iPhone as we have it today with one simple button. 

The Design:

The remarkable design made history from both software and hardware standpoint. The matchless design became the baseline upon which every other smart phone was based. This design influenced the entire industry. Even the fans of android or palm pre cannot deny the kind of bench mark that was set. It certainly can be termed as the Guru of all smart phone designs.

The Back button:

At first the phone needed to have at least one button, the home button which we have today. But Steve Jobs wanted to have two buttons instead of one. He wanted to have another permanent button at the back of the phone for navigation purposes. The senior designer Imran Chaudhry said that he argued with Steve jobs saying that it was about the trust and predictability and that it would create complexity as other devices. So he won the argument of keeping it simple as he states and there was only one button in the final approved design. If it would have been the way Steve Jobs wanted, the design of the iPhone would have been quite different. 

The buttons; one two or none

There were several design changes and certainly the change of thought process while designing our very own iPhone. The book also revealed that there were other changes that were to be made. In an earlier design there wasn’t going to be any button on the device at all. Wait, what? Not even the iconic button we have now?

But you never know, because there have been rumors that the latest design of iPhone will not be having any button. I will miss the only button if they exclude it from the design.

According to the book there were other disagreements about the design as well. Another suggestion was to add a physical keyboard just like black berry which was also ditched in the final product but this claim is said to be misquoted.

The Team

The new book titled “The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone’ by Brian Merchant open doors to look into the history, efforts and hard work that was put to design the iPhone that is ruling this generation. The interviews with the entire team of engineers revealed that it was a team’s effort. Another interesting fact is that even Steve Jobs was convinced into ideas and it was an entire team not just Steve jobs who made this possible.

Author Bio: Jessica Mathews is the writer of this blog post. She has earned her master’s degree and is very active Online Dissertation Help UK | Dissertationhub.co.uk in writing about latest interventions in the tech world.

Web Development Tools That You Need to Have

Web development is quite in trend due its high demand. Web developers demand high wages for developing websites. Websites are launched for different purposes, such as; there are educational websites, medical websites, business/ company websites. All of them need webs development tools. This article will discuss important web development tools that you need to have. You will have a better idea about the efficiency of given web development tools. 

 

CSS Pre-Processors

CSS-Preprocessors, is an easy to use web development tool. It is used for large projects and when projects get larger there are more technicalities involved in CSS processing. This web development tool is very helpful for developers but they have to master it before they start using it. It is quite easy at initial stages but when there are thousands lines of CSS then you have to manage several style sheets. In short, you must have CSS Pre Processor tool because it enables you to use CSS in high programming with more success. There are different CSS Pre-Processors, such as, Myth, LESS, Stylus and Sass. 

Template Engine

Template Engine is another web development tool that you need to have when you develop a website. If you are creating a single HTML page then it is pretty simple but when you have to create multiple HTML pages then it becomes a hectic task. Almost all the pages share the same characteristics, such as, sidebar, header and footer. If you intend to modify or change something in sidebar of one page, you have to change this thing in all the pages and Template Engine is a best tool to change the sidebars of other pages in efficient way without doing it one by one. You can use a Template Engine web development tool to change the same thing in other HTML pages. Now, you can get different Template Engine tools, these are; Handlebars, Jade and Kit.

Task Runner

The course of web development is quite a tedious task. Minification, Unit testing, Linting, Concatenating Files and Compilation are some of the things involved in web development. These things can now be done efficiently by using a web development tool named as ‘Task Runner’.  There are two types of Task Runner which can be used to make the tedious steps involved in web development easier and smoother. These two tools are Gulp and Grunt. 

Synchronized Testing Tool

This tool is of interest to all those fellows who are considering launching a mobile optimized site. If there are lots of things to test in your website than you can simply use ‘Synchronized Testing Tool’. This tool tests your website in different devices instantaneously. This tool saves your time and energy to test the device in multiple testing devices.

These web development tools are some of the most efficient tools to save your time and speed up the process of web development as well. There are multiple web development tools available but it is always better to be on safe side by choosing efficient and trusted web development tools.

Author’s Bio: This article has been written by Simon Lee, a Web Developer, Programmer and a writer who writes on different topics related to Dissertation Writing Service - Dissertationhub.co.uk  Information Technology and its implications in daily life.

Dealing With The Surprises Of Running Your Own Business

Having an idea, making it a reality, and being able to give up your day job is an exciting possibility. However, running your own startup can be stressful too. There are so many things that you have to stay on top of to make it work. For instance, when you have a job with a contract, and you’re employed by a company, you may not need to give much thought to your taxes. Your employer (or the HR department) will send off all of your details to the relevant government agency, and the correct amount will be deducted from your paycheck each month. You may resent how much you have to pay, but at least you do not have to calculate it all yourself and fill in reams of paperwork. This is not the case when you run your own business though. Tax codes are notoriously dull and complicated so navigating them yourself can be something that you may not look forward to. This is why so many tax returns are submitted just before the deadline. It is understandable that so many people would want to put off the time when they have to settle down and study their paperwork. This is why you may want to consider retaining an accountant or tax lawyer. Both can be quite expensive, but it is often a lot cheaper than finding that in your inexperience you’ve made a mistake. The penalty for this sort of thing is usually just a fine, but if it is thought that the omission or deception was perpetrated with intent, you may be facing a criminal sentence and the possibility of going to prison.

However, this is just one of the difficult things about running your own business. It is made a little easier by the fact that submitting your tax returns is something that you’ll get used to doing each year before the deadline. Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that are not as regular and predictable. Dealing with surprises is part of life, and sometimes they are fun (like a birthday party for instance, or a thoughtful and unexpected gift), but they can also be quite stressful at times. This is why you need to be able to think prophylactically. Being able to anticipate a potential problem and dealing with it before it becomes too difficult will make your life easier in all sorts of ways. This is especially true in business when things change every day. If you are not able to respond dynamically enough or with the right response, you may find yourself falling behind your more versatile competitors. Here are a few things that you may want to think about with reference to your business to make yourself better prepared:

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Learning that one of your employees is going to become a parent is a joyful occasion on a personal level, but from a business perspective, it can be quite difficult. The law states that expectant mothers have the provision to take maternity leave. The duration of that leave and the amount you need to pay depends on the laws in place in your area, but so as not to be caught unawares, you should, if you haven’t already, start to think about a maternity leave policy. Companies like Ellis Whittam can help you draw up an agreement that is both fair and honest. One of the most important things about this situation is that your employees are aware when they start at the company of what they can expect if they do find themselves needing to take time off to give birth. If you are not clear from the beginning, you may find that you are not able to negotiate as effectively. Paying for someone to take maternity leave (and paternity leave in some cases too) is quite expensive because they are probably an important part of your business (or else you would not employ them). Finding someone to replace them is difficult because it costs money. A study conducted in the UK recently found that it costs on average £30,614 (or about $40,000) to replace someone. You will not have to pay them permanently since it will be a temporary contract. However, you will need to train the new person to the standard of the person they are replacing. This costs money on its own, but until they start to work at the same level of competency, you will suffer in terms of lost productivity. There is then the issue of paying the absent employee too. It is an expensive business and being prepared for it is crucial. Dismissing the person on the grounds that they are pregnant (whether or not it is tacit) is illegal and could end up costing you way more in legal fees and a fine.

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If you run a small business, the threat of cyber attacks is not as great as if you run a large business. However, the threat is still real. 46% of businesses were attacked in the UK last year. It is not just an annoying surprise that necessitates you reboot your operating system though. A study conducted in the US found that 60% of small businesses that suffer a cyber attack are out of business within just six months. To make matters worse, research has found that a massive 80% of small businesses do not have a cyber attack response plan. Nearly every business in the country will use the internet in one way or another, and while it has made so many aspects of modern commerce so much more convenient, it also represents a real threat. Investing in cyber security software is a must if you want to protect your assets and your livelihood. One particularly damaging thing about which you should be aware is a data breach. The sale of databases of customers’ sensitive personal and financial information on the black market is becoming more common. If your customers do find that they are attacked themselves, and they lose money, or they just have to contact their bank in the event of suspicious activity, they may not trust you again in the future. Building your reputation and a relationship of trust with your customers takes years and it is so brittle. Also, a lot of cyber attacks could easily be avoided if your employees were more aware of what to look out for. Teaching them about potentially dangerous emails could save you a lot of time and money.

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Accidents happen all the time. The fact that one may not have happened to you recently is statistically comprehensible. That does not preclude the fact that you need to be able to protect yourself against them. Some people say that insurance is for pessimists, but when a fire starts and their business burns to the ground, they may start to realise that it is actually just for realists. Property insurance is not the only thing you should consider investing in though. Business insurance may be expensive at times, but it can protect you from all sorts of threats. Commercial liability insurance is important because modern society is becoming so litigious. If someone does fall and injure themselves at your office, you may be personally liable if they claim that you were negligent. This can cost a lot of money, even if you win the case. A good tip to further protect yourself is to register your company as an LLC (limited liability company). Fidelity insurance helps protect you against dishonest employees, while business interruption insurance helps you in the event that you cannot trade for a period of time. All three are necessary to running any type of business.

How to Add Text to Any Illustration for Your Blog

When you include illustrations in some of your blog posts, it could be for a number of different reasons. Sometimes it could be a diagram, while at others it may be more to provide a certain aesthetic to the content.

In both those cases (and most others) it can be helpful to know how to add text to your illustrations. That way you can label any parts of your diagrams, or insert inscriptions, captions or titles. In short you could give your illustrations more context, or accentuate them in other ways.

Of course if you want to add text to photos on Mac you’ll need a photo editor. While most photo editors are able to insert text fields into images, few do it with the gusto that Movavi Photo Editor provides.

Within the clean and modern-looking interface of Movavi Photo Editor you should be able to quickly locate the ‘Text’ menu. As you could probably guess it contains all the tools you need to add text into your illustrations, and once you click on it you’ll see a variety of tools in the panel on the right.

Once again it will be fairly obvious what you need to do, and you can go ahead and click on the ‘Add Text’ button to start adding text to your photos. When you do click on the button a frame of dashed white lines will appear in the main window of Movavi Photo Editor, and you can type in the text that you want to add.

To control the appearance of that text you need only to look back to the panel and you’ll find a variety of different options that let you customize how it looks. Not only will Movavi Photo Editor let you select the font, size, and justification but it will also let you adjust the rotation, color, outline, opacity and much more.

Keep in mind that you can add as many text blocks as you want in this fashion, and adjust the style and appearance of each one individually. On top of that the other features in Movavi Photo Editor will give you even more control over how your illustration looks, and you could transform its frame, enhance the image quality, apply artistic filters, remove elements, and much more.

Now that you know how to place text into your illustrations, you should certainly take advantage of it when you next publish one on your blog. Whether you’re labeling diagrams, inserting motivational quotes, or even just creating memes – the tools in Movavi Photo Editor will ensure that you have full control over the text that you add and can make it look exactly the way that you want.

How to Stay Secure while Online Shopping and Banking?

These days, Internet and computer involvement is integral in every part of life, from school to higher organization, from health to astrophysics, and from small businesses to big enterprises you will feel it everywhere. Sense of restlessness come up with the breakdown of the Internet service, and existing without the social network appears to be quite odd.

Slow and regular work of companies has paced up collaboration and communication. With the only Internet link and a contribution of the cloud-based application, you can work from anyplace, thus, proud to be a global civilian. You don't have to install other applications; even you can take the world on your smartphones, and stay linked on-the-move. But, safety is the vital concern, every time while you stay connected with the huge World Wide Web. Yet, computer safety has evolved as a discipline, and businesses are embedding their products with the top class antivirus, antimalware and antispyware technologies. You might download virus removal tool and software update from their official websites to boost product features and tackle rising Internet threats.

KASPERSKY is a name that is quite trusted and affordable among all home and startup business users. Being a beginner, you can go for their free version and after seeing the result can renew or go for the premium or paid version for better security. Any issues with the KASPERSKY software can be handled by KASPERSKY Support staff via e-mail or phone. Third-party online support providers are too providing technical support for KASPERSKY Internet Security software, KASPERSKY Antivirus, and more. A few support providers provide "antivirus support" domain to particularly check problems with KASPERSKY and other safety software. Experts can simply install, update, activate, and manage the software on your device to fix any related problems. Apart from software's issues, there can be issues with culprit viruses, spyware, and malware, that not only slow system speed by corrupting Microsoft Office, Operating system, and other installed software but also affect privacy, files, e-mails and other private data without your permission. So the end could be terrible and you should take fast steps to counteract those infected Internet threats.

KASPERSKY Tech Support team can examine whole memory settings and registry system to detect and eliminate any unseen threats. Third party online support is the best way to get Internet security, and it offers the 'First-Aid' facility for your PC, and protects valuable PC assets against possible threats. Keep KASPERSKY and Windows operating system up-to-date; set them to "Automatic" mode. You can get free safety software from well-known companies. Don't buy safety software in reply to unpredicted pop-up messages or e-mails, particularly messages that claim to have diagnosed your PC and found malware. They can be rogue or are often liable to get private information out from you. Avoid messages coming from unidentified address with the profitable subject line. Bad guys follow stylish technologies to track your e-mail address, as well as passwords, and finally steal your data. But, a smart setting is needed for your online accounts with the social network, e-mail client, banking and more to curb those. Don't share your personal data with any website. If you're banking or shopping online, stick to websites that use encryption to save your data as it travels from your PC to their server. An encrypted website particularly begins starts 'https'Free Articles, where the "s" is for security.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author is working as a technician for reliable KASPERSKY Tech Support that indulges in offering online computer help & support services in several countries like the US, and Australia. The company provides support for AVG, Avast, and Norton. You may also get the support 24/7 for Antivirus via calling on the company toll-free number.

Affordable SEO Services USA And Web Development Services

What Is SEO?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a process that getting traffic of the free, organic, editorial, or natural results on search engines. If you are running a business and you need more customers’ both international and local attention to it. So you make a web about it and host it. Then there SEO will come and help you to get into the top of the search results. If you are in top of the search results means that you get more attention than the others who are in the same field.

Keys To A Good SEO

Words matter
Search engines account for every word on the web. That means if someone look for a word, search engine only gives the results which have that word.

Titles matter
Each web page has a title. So search can be summarized only for that title.

Links matter
If one web page links to another means that it is rich of information. So search engines give first place to those kinds of pages.

Words in links
You need Web development services to design your website with links to go for a specific site that they promote. So if someone is searching using that word the specific website come first of the search results.

Reputation
Search engines mostly think about the site reputation. If a site includes with quality links and always updates their information and it has good stars the search engine automatically gives them the priority. An affordable SEO services USA company ensures you that it has a great content.

Benefits Of SEO

The results are low cost
You need to pay for someone to make your web page comes first on the google engine results. Just you want to do isFree Reprint Articles, go for one of the affordable SEO services USA Company and tell your needs. Then they will fulfill your needs.

Increased visibility in search engines
Clear and creative content show up in the search results. So you should hire a good web development services to do your web site design.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dean Nelson is a writer who writes about Search Engine Optimization, Web development services and hosting services in New York. He wrote this article about affordable SEO services USA and web development services in Ronkonkoma, NY.

How To Boost Your SEO In 2017

So, we are in 2017. If you are a blogger, you may be looking to some new SEO strategies to work on. In this article, we have 3 tips that can help you boost your SEO. With these tips, you can add value to your site. Moreover, you can improve authority and ranking of your blog or site as well. Read on to know more.

Add value

It may sound repetitive, but your blog should have content that adds a lot of value. Not just that, the content should also be relevant for your target audience. Actually, adding value doesn't revolve around quality content only. What you need to do is know your audience. Once you know your readers, you will be able to publish content that they will find greatly useful. Use the following tips to add value to your content:

• Check out your existing posts and look for the most popular ones
• Know more about your readers and answer their questions
• Find a way to beat your competitors
• Find out how you can know more about your niche

Improve The Browsing Experience

For SEO, you should work on the user experience. Find out how the user experience can help you increase traffic for your blog. As a matter of fact, the user experience starts off with a search. Therefore, you may want to make some tweaks in order to make the search easier.

• Test the links on your site and fix the broken ones. This will reduce the number of pages that will return a 404 error. This will also help you remove the pages with duplicate content.
• Make sure your content is appealing. It should be readable for readers and web crawlers.

Use videos

This is the age of video content. If you want to market your products and services the best way in addition to improve the ranking of your site, you should publish videos on your site. Videos get better attention of the viewers than text.

It's a good idea to hire professionals to make videos and optimize them for your blog or website. Focus on the Meta data of the video as well. You may have heard that one video is better than a thousand pictures, which is true.

Use social media

Social media should be part of your SEO efforts. As a matter of fact, thousands of sites get traffic from social media sites, especially Facebook. Let's take ViralNova. The site got popular in just a few months. Most of the traffic of the site comes from Facebook. Therefore, we highly suggest that you gear your efforts towards social media sites for SEO. You will see amazing results in a few months.

So, if you have been looking for ways to boost your SEO in 2017, we suggest that you check out these strategies. Hopefully, you will be able to rank better and get huge traffic for your blog. All you have to do is work consistently for a better future.

Are you looking for some SEO tips in 2017? If so, we suggest that you check out search service Houston. They can offer some great tips to help you boost your SEO.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Image: Pexels

Click Commerce: Retail Tech

It is difficult to compete with any type of developing tech in the retail world. There are ecommerce businesses that are outselling their physical equivalent, and this is due to how we purchase items in the 21st century. It is far easier to do it from the comfort of your own home and make a few clicks and wait for your item to be delivered to your doorstep. It is just a much more convenient way of buying items over traveling to a store and queuing up to buy for your items, not to mention the personal frustrations we all carry with us when we go shopping! So what is the answer for the retail store? Is there any type of business tech that we can take with us to make our customers shop with a bit more ease?

Start An App

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Apps are an integral part of any business, store or otherwise. The interactivity of apps is used to the nth degree on TV shows, live events, and advertisements. This is one way to give your customers’ shopping experience a jolt. Having an app which gives customers the idea of what they can purchase before they physically purchase it eases the usual shopping frustrations, and if they can pay for it before heading into the store, it makes the employees’ lives easier and reduces waiting times which increases productivity. It makes so much logical sense.

Have “Floating” Members Of Staff

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There are many members of staff that are stationary at the checkout, and there is nobody on hand to help the customer when they need some. Having staff “circle the perimeter” for advice but also for payment can make life easier for people. Carrying mobile credit card terminals for easy payment is a great way to reduce queues and to highlight the interactivity between customer and shop assistant. This, of course, depends on the type of store you run. It wouldn’t work in a massive department store where there are hundreds of customers, but in a homelier store where numbers are smaller, such as a furniture or bathroom store, this can help to ease congestion.

Let The Customers Scan Their Items En Route

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This is one approach that is really working in bigger department stores, where customers have a scanner attached to their shopping cart and scan the items as they go. Then they go to a specialized payment area and pack their shopping and go. This works in many ways for a business. The first way it really helps is the reduction of customer queries on price, which could be mislabeled due to human error, helping the staff to get on with other duties. The second way this helps is that customers are less reliant on these staff members, which means you could potentially use less staff, saving you money in the long-term.

User-friendliness and ease of buying are the two factors that make up the customer shopping experience, and these are some technological approaches that could give your store a major transformation and help you to compete with online businesses.

Being Smart With Technology In Business

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Being smart with technology isn’t about becoming an advanced IT firm or shedding company profits on the latest, most expensive gear. Being smart with technology is about looking at the hardware, software and methods your business employs within its day to day operations and seeing whether you’re open to threats, failures or outdated procedures. In this modern age, we’re all entirely dependent on technology from both the consumer and the business end. Your company’s precious data and details rely on a secure line of defence in terms of the tech you use and how you use it, so here are some ways to ensure that your business is being smart with its technology.

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Check your software is secure.

The vast majority of business vulnerabilities, when it comes to the precious data or details you want to protect from external threat, do not lie in the expensive and well-tested security systems you’ve put in place to protect your technology. A business’ vulnerabilities lie in its employees and the way in which they use technology to the same extent that it lies in the physical security measures you put in place.

Software with faults or broken security procedures could be used to breach your business’ security, so you might want to consider a company which could help test to ensure your software isn’t faulty over at https://www.qasymphony.com/blog/functional-testing-types/. It only takes one poorly trained employee or one glitch in a poor piece of software to expose your business’ data to an external threat.

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Keep your website secure.

On the same line of thought as the previous point, your business should be striving to keep its website - virtual “front of house” - secure too, as this will turn into a target the bigger your company becomes. Very basic security procedures should involve strong and impossible-to-guess passwords, as suggested over at http://www.senatechno.com, and this also applies to the internal online system your business may use for employees.

Using a non-existent word as a password is something that nobody could ever guess, unlike your birthday or favourite sport. Training your workers is key here, because, as mentioned on https://www.yourreadybusiness.co.uk, the people working at your company are the people likely to be scammed or targeted for the passwords they may use on the company’s system.

Store data safely.

Technology is useful for more than just typing out documents and filing reports. All this important, profitable data you’re passing around becomes vulnerable and prone to risk as soon as you fail to back it up and store it in multiple locations, as explained on http://blog.maytech.net. Using a storage solution such as the cloud, perhaps, is a great way to ensure your business has a plan B should something ever happen to the data you store on servers at the premises.

You still need to encrypt highly-sensitive data.

Whilst your employees may be trustworthy, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be prone to accidentally breaching or leaking data. As suggested on https://www.loanme.com, it’s important to restrict the majority of employees from accessing data at the top of the chain which could damage or potential ruin the business if it was ever lost or stolen.