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415 IT has been serving the San Rafael area since 2005, providing IT Support such as technical helpdesk support, computer support, and consulting to small and medium-sized businesses

How to Cut Printing Costs by 40 Percent Using Technology

How to Cut Printing Costs by 40 Percent Using Technology

As IT administrators, we spend our days securing networks and managing cloud migrations, yet one of the biggest budget leaks often sits right in the corner of the office: the printer.

If you haven’t taken a serious look at your organization’s printing costs lately, the numbers are staggering. The average organization spends between 1 percent and 3 percent of their annual revenue on printing. That comes out to roughly $750 per employee every year. With a strategic digital transformation, however, these costs stop skyrocketing; they start vanishing.

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Should You Pay Your Vendors and Bills with Crypto?

Should You Pay Your Vendors and Bills with Crypto?

One question businesses have been asking over the past couple of years is: “Is crypto a viable payment system?” With the maturity of digital asset markets and the rise of regulated stablecoins, the landscape is more professional than any time in the past, but still carries with it substantial risks. If you are considering adding digital assets to your checkout or B2B payment flow, here is the current breakdown of the pros and cons.

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New to Managed Services? Here Are 3 No-Brainers to Consider

New to Managed Services? Here Are 3 No-Brainers to Consider

As your business has grown, have you fallen into the tech trap of DIY IT solutions? While you might have started with just a handful of employees, the infrastructure you’ve built is no longer sustainable or reliable. You need professional help if you want your business to stay competitive, and we have just the thing for you.

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Want to Make Security Training Easier? Embrace Micro-Learning

Want to Make Security Training Easier? Embrace Micro-Learning

Can your team recall what you discussed during your last mandatory cybersecurity training session? We doubt it, and not because you did a bad job (we’re sure you did an excellent job on that PowerPoint, champ). It’s just that small business security training is far from engaging by default, and it’s seen as more of a requirement than anything else. If you want to shift this “annual compliance” perspective, you’ll have to make some changes, and fast.

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Why Percussive Maintenance is Killing Your Technology

Why Percussive Maintenance is Killing Your Technology

We’ve all been there: the Wi-Fi drops during a high-stakes meeting, or the TV remote ignores your commands for the tenth time. In a moment of pure frustration, you give the device a love tap, and—as if by magic—it starts working again.

Whether you call it percussive maintenance or just asserting dominance, that physical jab feels like a victory. While that slap might provide a temporary fix, you’re actually playing a high-stakes game of planned obsolescence.

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AI Doesn’t Need to Replace Workers

AI Doesn’t Need to Replace Workers

Quantifying the impact of AI on employment is notoriously difficult because technology rarely replaces a job in its entirety. Instead, it tends to disassemble a role into its component tasks. While AI is exceptionally efficient at handling repetitive, data-heavy, or predictable processes, it struggles with the high-level reasoning and interpersonal nuances that define many professions.

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Your 3-Step Plan to Avoid the Invisible Tax

Your 3-Step Plan to Avoid the Invisible Tax

It’s easy in IT to see a large IT invoice and think something needs to be done about it, but have you ever stopped to think about how much lost productivity is costing your business? Chances are, it’s even more than what it costs to receive IT support. Today, we’re exploring this invisible tax you pay due to poor IT performance (and what you can do to stop it).

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3 Types of Data You’ll Need to Dominate In 2026

3 Types of Data You’ll Need to Dominate In 2026

Is your business ready to grow as we head into 2026? You may have heard that data is what fuels the decisions that lead to growth, but without a focus on the right types of data, you could be floundering and playing catch-up. Today, we’re sharing three types of data that your business can use to dominate in 2026, as well as solutions to help you collect it.

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No, It Isn’t Just You… Technology is Getting Worse Over Time

No, It Isn’t Just You… Technology is Getting Worse Over Time

Do you remember when you were able to Google something and get the answer immediately, and not have to scroll past ads, sponsored results, and a not-totally-reliable answer hallucinated by an AI? You aren’t the only one. This trend of gradually declining quality in the products and services we all rely on has a very specific, descriptive name that efficiently captures what is happening to tech while also making all our feelings about it exceptionally clear.

In 2022, technology critic and author Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification.” The term was named the Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society in 2023, even beating out “AI.” It has proved so resonant that its use has expanded beyond social media platforms to include hardware, software, and technology in general.

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You Need to Start Training Against Your Worst Enemy

You Need to Start Training Against Your Worst Enemy

Do you actually know which of your coworkers is one click away from getting the whole company hacked? It’s surprisingly easy to get into a business’ IT system. All it takes is one person falling for a fake email, downloading a sketchy file, or giving up their password to a scammer.

If you aren't testing your team, you’re basically just waiting for a disaster to happen. Here is why simulated phishing tests—sending out fake scam emails—are actually a great way to protect your business.

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3 Proactive Ways to Maintain Your Business Technology

3 Proactive Ways to Maintain Your Business Technology

It’s easy to think of IT as a money sink. No matter how much you spend, there’s always some issue that surfaces, requiring a considerable investment on your part. But what if we told you that you don’t have to worry about IT issues?

With the right approach, you can transition from the traditional reactive method of IT maintenance to proactive IT solutions, designed to save you money.

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Your IT Should Offer Benefits to Your Business’ Audience, Too

Your IT Should Offer Benefits to Your Business’ Audience, Too

Every so often, it helps to reflect for a moment on the purpose of your business, which is—with almost no exceptions—to deliver a good or service to your customers/clients. As such, every improvement you make to your technology should yield dividends for this base, even if the improvement is internal.

Let’s talk about how this might take shape and how we can help you facilitate it.

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Are Your Team Members Too Afraid to Do Their Jobs?

Are Your Team Members Too Afraid to Do Their Jobs?

We’ve all been there. You’re flying through your inbox, trying to reach inbox zero before a meeting, and you click a link in a shipping notification. The page doesn't load quite right. You stare blankly and your anxiety spikes.

That moment happens a lot and it is a fork in the road for your company’s security. In many organizations, that employee’s next thought isn’t: “I should report this,” it is: “If I tell anyone, I’m going to get fired.”

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Ring Cameras Reveal More than You Know

Ring Cameras Reveal More than You Know

We’ve seen our fair share of convenience vs. security trade-offs, but few consumer devices sit at the center of that Venn diagram quite like the Ring camera. To the average user, it’s a doorbell that significantly reduces package thieves. To those of us that work with technology, it’s a sophisticated Internet of Things (IoT) sensor with a direct, persistent uplink to one of the world’s largest cloud infrastructures.

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Dickens Dealt with Goblins… We Deal with the Christmas Hackers

Dickens Dealt with Goblins… We Deal with the Christmas Hackers

The holiday season isn’t usually a time we like to spend dwelling on unpleasant things, but unfortunately, cybercrime is so prevalent that we cannot afford to ever let our guard down. What we can do, however, is tell a (somewhat) happier story that nevertheless reminds us what to keep an eye out for.

As such, please enjoy our version of a lesser-known Charles Dickens story.

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Who's Pulling the Strings? Understanding and Fighting the Digital Algorithm

Who's Pulling the Strings? Understanding and Fighting the Digital Algorithm

You've heard the grumbling, seen the memes, and probably even felt it yourself: that vague, all-powerful entity known as the algorithm. It's blamed for everything from political polarization to your inexplicable obsession with people eating military rations. What exactly is it, and what digital giants are pulling its strings?

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3 Reasons to Be Scared of Break-Fix IT

3 Reasons to Be Scared of Break-Fix IT

You want to know what’s scary? Anytime your company’s IT fails and you’re left wondering if you can afford a new piece of hardware or the maintenance to fix what’s broken. When you rely on break-fix IT, you’re basically living in a horror film; you never know when the slasher is going to leap out of the shadows and strike. With managed IT, you can sidestep the scaries and know with confidence you’re taking care of your business’ future.

Here are three reasons why managed IT is the superior option for managing your technology solutions.

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How a Virtual CIO Delivers Enterprise Strategy for a Fraction of the Cost

How a Virtual CIO Delivers Enterprise Strategy for a Fraction of the Cost

Is your business technology a source of uncertainty and frustration? Are you constantly reacting to IT problems when you would prefer to proactively leverage technology to drive your business’ growth? This struggle is often the result of the Executive IT Gap, a phenomenon that traps businesses in an endless cycle of reactive, costly, and inefficient technology decisions that slow down growth.

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Your Business Would Benefit from a Cloud-First IT Model

Your Business Would Benefit from a Cloud-First IT Model

Does this sound familiar? Your business is growing, but you haven’t changed your server hardware since you began operations. It’s hindering growth at this point, and you don’t know what to do. The best solution out there is to turn to the cloud. With the right implementation of a cloud-first model, you can effectively future-proof your business so it can grow unhindered.

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Avoiding Digital Lemons is Easy with Strategic IT Roadmapping

Avoiding Digital Lemons is Easy with Strategic IT Roadmapping

You invested in technology to support your business, spending time and money to acquire and implement it. What happens if that technology turns out to be a lemon… a high-priced item that’s ultimately a dud, or at the very least doesn’t mesh with your future plans?

This is often the result when tech is purchased to fix a short-term issue without a long-term strategy, and ultimately means that the purchaser loses money and productivity due to incompatibility issues. Alternatively, planning a strategic roadmap for your IT to follow helps ensure your investments actually advance your business’ future.

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We are proud to announce that 415 IT and our CEO, Daniel Stevens, were recently featured by CIO Applications. We discussed how and why we serve our clients, as well as some sneak peeks for our future. Read our interview by visiting:  https:...

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San Rafael, California 94901

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