Blog & Updates

Rivermont and Russell Construction to make QC history

February 1, 2017

When you hear the term “boarding school,” what comes to mind? Around the Twin State Tech office, the general consensus was that we hadn’t heard of many in the United States. According to a recent article by the Quad-City Times, that is about to change. In the Article “For the first time in almost half a century, Bettendorf will be home to a boarding school. . .” the QC Times wrote. According to the article, the project that has been underway for several months is now expected to double its school rank. With the offer of a former Bettendorf mansion turned dormitory, the school will soon be able to accommodate international boarders coming to the Quad Cities “from countries such

Read More
urban campus

Excitement for EICC urban campus project

February 1, 2017

It’s always a proud moment to see one of our clients be recognized for their achievements. On Jan. 10, Scott Community College announced that they would be receiving an additional $2 million toward the urban campus development project. In the article According to the article in the Quad-City Times, the unexpected increase in funding came from a surge in interest from US Bank. This means that the original scope of the project can now be expanded to include “a community building, additional science labs, and more space for the college’s new virtual reality program and a center for information technology and business entrepreneurship and innovation.” We are excited for all that this project will mean for Scott Community College and their

Read More
web developers

2016 Tools of Our Trade – Web Developers

December 2, 2016

The web is full of shiny new toys to play with. This can make it a bit overwhelming at times. A survey by Ashley Nolan—a Senior UI Engineer working at JUST EAT—regarding what tools web developers are currently using got me thinking about what we use at Twin State for front-end development. As a designer creating websites for a variety of clients, I have to stop occasionally and ask myself: Is there a better way to do this? Is there a faster way to do this? Is my code going to be understood by anyone else who has to maintain this website? If I use a new tool, are my coworkers going to be able to maintain it? I work closely with

Read More

Keeping Your Office Healthy This Winter

November 25, 2016

It’s the day after Thanksgiving, and you know what that means: Christmas music has officially hit the airwaves, festive holiday decorations are being brought out of storage, and people everywhere are searching for the best deals of this holiday season. Come Monday, we’ll be returning to work. For many of us, this means sitting at a desk for several hours—sometimes all day! And with winter creeping up just around the corner, it’s important to stay on top of our health, even after the holidays have passed. When it’s gloomy and cold outside, it’s easy to forget (or ignore) things like working out or drinking enough water throughout the day. Plenty of articles out there will tell you how important it

Read More

So You Want to Build A Mobile App

November 11, 2016

It’s almost the end of 2016, and apps are everywhere. If you’re looking to create one of your own, you’re in luck! There are an abundance of choices for where to start. Some of our developers attended a talk given by Mike Cerny, a C# expert and mobile developer. At this talk, Cerny discussed five different ways of developing a mobile app, each with different levels of performance, access to device functions, and ease of development. Here are the five ways to develop a mobile app in order of performance (starting with the fastest): Native Platform—using Swift or Objective C in iOS, or Java in Android. Cross-compiled Native Code—write in another language that you like, and compile it for the

Read More

Help Welcome New Members of Our Team

October 4, 2016

As part of enhancing your experience with infrastructure management and technical support, Twin State Technical Services has added several new faces this September. New employees joining the infrastructure team include Network Engineers Jake Sellers and Brien Rakoci. Jake is a 2015 graduate in Computer Science from University of Iowa. Brien is a professional Information Systems Manager who has moved with his family from Arizona to hometown Illinois. We have also added to service through our Help Desk with new full-time employee Mark Vonholt—a Computer Science graduate from Western Illinois University—as well as moving our summer intern from St. Ambrose University, Brett Hippler, to a part-time position on Help Desk.

Read More

Congratulations to Reader’s Choice Winners!

September 27, 2016

At Twin State, we want to celebrate the achievements of not only our employees, but the clients we work with. In a recent addition of the QC Times, several of our clients were voted as Reader’s Choice winners in a number of categories. In Beauty, Haus of Hair won Honorable Mention for Best Hair Salon and 5ive Star Salon Spa won Runner Up for Best Spa. In Everyday Life, for Best Gym/Fitness Center/Yoga Studio, the YMCA was the overall winner. For Best Higher Education (Post High School), Scott Community College won an Honorable Mention. In Home and Garden, the overall winner for the Best Place to Buy a Hot Tub/Pool category was QCA Pools & Spas. In Best Ice Cream,

Read More

Congratulations to Happy Joe’s and Snowstar!

September 27, 2016

At Twin State, we are proud of the businesses we work with and are always happy to highlight exciting news, especially when it comes to our clients! Recently news has us doubly excited! In the QC Times, it was announced that two of our clients—Happy Joe’s and Snowstar—will be joining forces come this winter. This new venture has been in the works since last January, and is set to start when the Snowstar opens for the winter sports season.

Read More
Twin State Technical Services team providing IT support and network solutions for businesses.

General Virus Prevention for Businesses

July 19, 2016

Hello Everyone, We’re sending this out to educate you about the risk of malware—malicious software—and virus prevention best practices. The best way to understand how to avoid malware is understanding how infections occur, what different types of infections do, and the most common virus prevention practices. General Ways Infections Occur: There are too many ways a machine can get infected to describe here, and new ways to infect machines are discovered every day, so we’ll just cover the most common. Accepting User Account Control prompts without reading them. Everyone has seen these annoying boxes that pop up every time you want to run certain files. They do, however, serve a very important purpose: to make sure you understand what is

Read More

Maintaining Regular Backups

July 19, 2016

Properly maintaining backups can financially benefit your business. Sometimes, it could even save your business. Several weeks ago, a popular encryption based virus made its way around the Quad Cities . . . again. This particular virus, Cryptowall, tricks users into opening a malicious file which infects their computer. Cryptowall can then spread throughout your internal network and potentially infect every computer—locking everyone out of every file until you either pay a ransom fee that goes up over time or until the infection is cleared and you recover the files from your most recent backup. During the time that Cryptowall made its most recent appearance, two of our customers were affected by the virus. Both had proper backups in place,

Read More

Need IT Support That Moves As Fast As You Do?

Whether you’re cleaning up tech chaos or scaling for growth, we’ll help you build a strategy that fits your business and your budget. Let’s start with a conversation.

No pitch. No fluff. Just clarity, confidence, and a plan built around you.

Connect With Us

SIGN UP FOR OUR TECH TALK eNEWSLETTER

Bite-sized Tech Wisdom.
Zero Geek Speak

Once a month, we break down what’s new, what’s next, and what actually matters in IT – no jargon, no fluff, just practical insights you can put to work.

Newsletter Step 1

Start typing and press enter to search

Scroll to Top