Blog & Updates

Efficient customer support is essential for maintaining productivity and ensuring smooth operations. Twin State understands the importance of providing timely and effective support to its customers, which is why we have implemented Halo Service Desk. To show how our customers can leverage its benefits, let’s first look at what Halo is. What is Halo? Halo Service Desk is a comprehensive customer support platform designed to streamline communication between Twin State and our clients. It serves as a centralized hub for logging, tracking, and resolving customer issues, ensuring that no request goes unnoticed or unresolved. How Customers Can Use Halo Submitting Support Requests: Customers can easily submit support requests through the Halo ticketing system via email or our online portal. Whether

Twin State Technical Services has once again proven its industry leadership by winning top honors from the Quad Cities Regional Business Journal in two categories: “Best Cybersecurity Company of the Region” and “Best IT Support Company of the Region”. The awards recognize excellence in various business categories and are voted on by subscribers of the Quad Cities Business Journal. This marks the third consecutive year that Twin State has achieved this impressive feat. Earning the title of “Best Cybersecurity Company of the Region” for the third year in a row highlights our unwavering commitment to protecting businesses from ever-evolving cyber threats. Our advanced solutions and proactive strategies continue to set the benchmark in the industry, ensuring the security and stability

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the world at an unprecedented pace, which makes it essential for everyone to understand its basic terminology. Here’s a guide to commonly used AI terms that everyone should know: Artificial Intelligence (AI) AI refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans. These machines can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and language translation. Machine Learning (ML) Machine Learning is a subset of AI that involves the development of algorithms that enable computers to learn from and make predictions based on data. ML systems improve their performance as they are exposed to more data over time. Deep Learning

Selecting the right equipment for your business is crucial for maximizing efficiency and productivity. Whether you’re upgrading your existing infrastructure or starting from scratch, finding the perfect fit can be a daunting task. There are so many choices; what is the difference between Windows Home Edition and Windows Pro when it comes pre-installed on your new laptop? How do you decide? To help navigate this process, we provide some experienced insights and tips on how to source the right equipment for your specific business needs. In addition, your TSTS engineer, our operations support center, and our sourcing expert, Michael Fredricks, are here with patience and guidance on these questions. Assess Your Requirements Before diving into the procurement process, it’s essential

Technology serves as the backbone of businesses across industries, driving efficiency, innovation, and growth. However, simply adopting the latest tech solutions is not enough to ensure success. To truly harness the benefits of technology, businesses must prioritize ongoing maintenance and support. So, let’s dive into the importance of maintaining technology infrastructure, and what the ratio of maintenance to new projects should look like in a typical organizational budget. Maximizing Operational Efficiency Regular maintenance of technology systems ensures that they operate at peak efficiency, minimizing downtime and disruptions. Whether it’s updating software, patching security vulnerabilities, or optimizing network performance, proactive maintenance measures help businesses maintain smooth operations and maximize productivity. There is a rule of thumb to old “maintenance” of existing systems to induction of new and optimized in yearly IT budgets. If between 50 – 70% of your budget is spent maintaining what

Individuals and organizations use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) as a solution that provides a “private road” on the public internet superhighway; they are not new. Even today, VPN use for data privacy is on the rise. But what exactly are VPNs, when should you use them, and why are they crucial for safeguarding your online presence? What is a VPN? A VPN is a secure and encrypted connection between your device (such as a computer, smartphone, or tablet) and the internet. When you connect to a VPN server, your internet traffic is routed through an encrypted tunnel, hiding your IP address and encrypting your data to protect it from prying eyes. This creates a secure and private connection, shielding your

Both Google and Yahoo have recently announced significant changes to their Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) policies, aimed at improving email security and reducing phishing and spoofing attacks. These changes are a proactive step towards enhancing the trustworthiness of email correspondence for users across their platforms, but they can be disruptive to your company’s email correspondence with customers if you are not in compliance with these service provider’s new policies. Google’s and Yahoo’s Initiative Google and Yahoo’s latest update to their anti-spam protections involves tightening DMARC policies to further authenticate emails to ensure they’re coming from trusted sources. With this change, Gmail and Yahoo (who also provides AOL email service) will scrutinize incoming emails for authentication, ensuring that