Blue Ridge Technology

A longer lasting battery with Efficiency mode Does your workforce rely on laptops or tablets running Windows? If so, battery life can be a persistent concern. Everything’s fine when your team members are working at their primary desk and connected to power, but short battery life can create headaches and even lost work in other situations. And what about resource efficiency? Do your team’s laptops and Windows tablets seem to struggle under the weight of everything you need them to do? Or do they feel surprisingly sluggish compared to just a few years ago? Sometimes the answer to problems like these is that you need to upgrade older devices. Batteries don’t last forever, and older machines lack the power of newer ones. But what if you could get more out of your current devices—without needing to replace them just yet? That’s what the latest upcoming feature in Windows 11 promises to do. Here’s everything you need to know about a Efficiency Mode, a feature likely coming to Windows 11 in ...

Updates Can Be a Pain, but not as Painful as a Breach! Over the years, Microsoft has developed quite a reputation surrounding its Windows updates. It seems like every week there’s something new popping up and saying “Update me now, please!” When it’s not Windows itself or other core Microsoft 365 apps, it’s some other software tool you rely on to get work done. If your business isn’t using endpoint management (more on that later), then it’s up to every single PC user in your organization to make sure their machine is up to date. And, unfortunately, Microsoft makes it easy enough for them to cheat, thanks to that “later” button that’s always popping up. (Admit it; you’ve probably used it, too. So have we, and we do this for a living!) Thankfully in recent years and releases, Microsoft has slowed the pace of its security updates and made many of them happen behind the scenes, without any user action needed. But you still could be in danger from un-updated devices — even if everyone on yo...

Begin work quicker...if that’s your thing. If your work PC seems like it’s getting too slow, your mind might immediately jump to dollar signs or danger: maybe it’s time to upgrade, which is always an expensive proposition. Or, worse, maybe you’re in danger. Maybe your PC is being slowed down by malware or some other digital threat. Those are both possibilities, of course. But there’s another much less serious or costly consideration: Windows startup. If the biggest source of slowdowns seems to be when you restart your computer, it may not be the computer. It could be all the programs that are launching at startup. And that’s something you can control. Why A Startup Inventory Matters When your computer first launches Windows, it does a number of things. One is to check the list of startup apps and then initialize each one. The more programs and apps are on this list, the longer it will take for your computer to get to its normal level of responsiveness. The thing is, over time, your sta...