00:01.42
Andy Young
Oh, there we go. Got little music going. Welcome back to the 825 Technologies Podcast. I’m Andy, founder and CEO here at 825 Tech. As always, I’m joined with Tim, our senior tech wizard.
00:14.48
Andy Young
Tim, how’s it going today?
00:16.03
Tim
Good. Very good.
00:17.79
Andy Young
Good.
00:18.78
Tim
Yeah, that’s right. I mean, as soon as are we’re keeping our business running smoothly, helping scale, making sure the team is always on the same page.
00:26.79
Andy Young
That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome. That is all we can do is what we’re meant to do. So let’s get right into the first of the top four stories. Shaping, small business, medium-sized business, IT landscape this week. And you know, we’ll connect to the dots to how these trends impact your business and how we, 825 Technologies, can help, obviously.
00:49.48
Andy Young
We don’t run ads, but we do quite often, know, say, hey, check us out. So, you know, just be ready for that. That’s our ad. First up,
01:00.78
Andy Young
AI is officially mainstream for small businesses. There was this recent survey that showed that 84% of businesses, business leaders actually say AI has boosted their team’s productivity.
01:13.51
Andy Young
And it’s not just the big players anymore like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace Gemini. Those are everywhere, but there’s also other stuff going on.
01:22.09
Tim
Yeah, it’s not just about writing emails faster. We’re talking about real time meeting transcripts, document documents, summarizations, and even AI powered security alerts. I worked at client last week who cut their admin workload in half by just automated automating meeting notes.
01:38.89
Andy Young
Yes, like that’s huge. You think about programs like Otter AI and what it can do and Notion rolled out their AI meeting note capabilities. And so the best part is that these tools are built right into platforms that small businesses are already using.
01:56.02
Andy Young
So if you’re not leveraging AI yet, I think you might be leaving efficiency on the table at this point in your organization.
02:05.11
Tim
And don’t forget, is making cybersecurity smarter, smarter flagging and phishing attempts and suspicious logins before they become problem.
02:12.73
Andy Young
Yeah, and that’s pretty insane that it it can use geographic data or, you know, even just like, wait a minute, this person normally logs in, you know, from eight to five and they’re logging in at 2 a.m. m Hang on, something’s up.
02:26.64
Andy Young
So, I mean, it is pretty powerful.
02:29.88
Tim
Yep, I agree with it.
02:30.16
Andy Young
It’s worth checking out at least, and it’s also worth looking into security on it. So, yeah, pretty interesting stuff.
02:41.16
Andy Young
So just a quick question though. Do you have a favorite use for AI?
02:49.63
Tim
Yes.
02:51.40
Andy Young
Do you want to share it?
02:52.67
Andy Young
You don’t have to.
02:52.92
Tim
I like i like these happen problem solving. That’s a big one.
02:56.28
Andy Young
Yeah.
02:57.72
Tim
I mean, even though we look online, Google, Reddit, YouTube, all that stuff, sometimes it’s very complexity. And then sometimes the AI is able to break it down to make it easier for us.
03:07.79
Andy Young
Yeah, there is something really oddly powerful and nonjudgmental of being able to balance ideas of these models.
03:16.46
Tim
Mm-hmm.
03:17.36
Andy Young
Because in a lot of it’s like having a real-time computer lab where you can be like, hey, here’s a scenario. Let’s say XYZ happens. What would be the theoretical output?
03:27.90
Andy Young
And I’m with you, man.
03:29.76
Andy Young
That’s pretty cool. That’s really cool. The other fun one is… this is one that I use is like, what’s trending in XYZ, right? So like it might be, what’s trending in the pizza restaurant landscape right now?
03:45.26
Andy Young
And yeah yeah it’s bizarre, the stuff that it finds that, you know, you’re like, okay, didn’t know that existed. I’m going to go try and that out. So who doesn’t want to try a new slice of Zah every once in a while?
03:58.40
Andy Young
yeah.
03:59.39
Tim
Pepperonis and pineapples. What? That’s it.
04:02.09
Andy Young
Right, right. All right, moving on to story number small businesses now. The cloud spending is ridiculous.
04:12.20
Andy Young
This year, 2025, it’s set to hit $650 billion US. And that is a massive number.
04:20.06
Andy Young
So Amazon Web Services just expanded their, what you would call their SMB competency program, which means you’ve got more tailored support for small businesses moving to the cloud from a a Amazon.
04:33.51
Tim
Yeah, I love this. AWS is rolling out new resources for things like cloud migration, disaster recovery, even AI ML integrations. It’s not just for the Fortune 500s anymore.
04:45.53
Tim
SMBs can get enterprise-grade solutions as a fraction of a cost.
04:49.76
Andy Young
Yeah. Yeah.
04:51.03
Tim
Mm-hmm.
04:51.94
Andy Young
And, you know, with cybersecurity, with compliance, those things kind of be on top of mind. These new cloud offerings, they’re really a game changer if you’re thinking about, hey, you know, we got this cloud project or, you know, we want to try to start up a new app. I mean, this is a good time to look at what’s available.
05:13.26
Tim
Yeah. I mean, plus AWS is offering outcome based solutions so you can focus on results, not the technology for technology sakes.
05:22.78
Andy Young
Yes.
05:23.14
Tim
Mm hmm.
05:24.40
Andy Young
Yeah. I would throw out one big caveat, though, as we like pat AWS on the back. There have been instances. Yeah, good job, AWS.
05:33.52
Tim
Yeah.
05:33.94
Andy Young
Wait a minute. Hold on. There have been some instances where they’ve been nailing people with overage charges. And sometimes it’s not the person’s fault.
05:45.94
Andy Young
It’ll be like, oh, you got a DDoS attack on your cloud server tenant space.
05:49.91
Tim
Oh no.
05:51.18
Andy Young
And, you know, here’s a $10,000 web hosting bill for this month or cloud bill. So, you know, that that’s happening and that’s unfortunate.
06:01.80
Andy Young
So it definitely that’s a good.
06:02.45
Tim
Yeah. Yeah. DDoS is bad.
06:06.48
Andy Young
Very bad. That’s a terrible day getting a $10,000 bill.
06:08.53
Tim
Right.
06:08.70
Andy Young
Yeah.
06:10.93
Andy Young
Definitely worth asking AWS about that as start using some of their services.
06:14.23
Tim
Mm-hmm.
06:15.33
Andy Young
Like, hey, let’s galvanize this so I’m not getting surprised by some bills. And yeah, yeah, theoretically, they should be able to help with this SMB competency program with things just like that.
06:21.88
Tim
right
06:28.03
Andy Young
And I wonder if that’s not something that they were like, you know, it’s cheaper for us to not write off these $10,000 bills and just pay some engineers to come in and do this for clients.
06:40.24
Tim
Wow.
06:41.06
Andy Young
Yeah. Well, anyway, wild world, man.
06:42.54
Tim
That is pretty crazy.
06:44.80
Tim
It is.
06:45.14
Andy Young
wild. Yeah. Well, third up here is the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC, just banned something very cool. And in particular, Swifties everywhere are rejoicing.
06:57.69
Tim
Hmm.
07:00.24
Andy Young
Tim, I know you’re a closet, Swifty. I’ve seen you with your sweat. Yeah.
07:06.92
Andy Young
to go little pop culture because I’ve got two daughters here. I guess they’re starting to redevelop a little tension here between Blake Lively and Taylor Swift. And so, you know, everybody keep their ear to the ground on that one.
07:21.94
Andy Young
So anyway.
07:22.83
Tim
Drop it down, drop it down.
07:24.46
Andy Young
Yeah. So yeah, the FTC just banned hidden fees for live events and for short-term rentals. Hello, Airbnb.
07:32.44
Andy Young
And this, yeah, this is a huge compliance story. Really, really big. Even if you’re not in hospitality or events, it really reminds all of us in business or just like internally, like serving internal clients.
07:48.51
Andy Young
Transparency is everything.
07:50.42
Tim
Yes, it is. That’s right, Andy. I mean, we’ve seen a few SMB clients get tripped up on unclear billing practices.
07:58.00
Tim
With these new rules, you need to make sure your payment systems or invoices are crystal clear.
08:03.54
Andy Young
Yes. So if you’re using online booking programs or e-commerce solutions, I would double check your checkout process. You should be doing this once a quarter anyway, you know, running through like your client, what’s it like, what are the bottlenecks?
08:16.30
Andy Young
But the last thing you want right now is a compliance fine from the FTC.
08:22.01
Andy Young
Or really, let’s be honest, the worst thing you could get would be to lose customers’ trust.
08:27.47
Tim
And that would be bad for your business.
08:27.49
Andy Young
Right?
08:30.11
Andy Young
Yeah.
08:32.16
Tim
And yeah yeah yeah, if you’re not sure where to start our compliance team Munker Cybersecurity, can review your setup and make sure you’re covered.
08:31.93
Andy Young
Yeah.
08:39.89
Andy Young
That’s right. You know, we’re lucky.
08:42.44
Andy Young
We got it going on here because not only do we have Bunker for compliance, we’ve got SheetDog that’s been doing web dev for over a decade.
08:52.99
Andy Young
Right? So, you know, we’ve got to do it. the the the the experts that can help out here, which is pretty cool. But you know, think it ultimately goes back to clients trust, right? Like what, why did you get into business? What problem are you trying to solve with your business?
09:10.70
Andy Young
I think that’s always a great question to ask your vendors. Like what do you,
09:13.77
Tim
Absolutely. could be us.
09:14.98
Andy Young
Yeah. That’s right. It’s pretty clear with us. you know We’re out there. Our mission is simple, to serve people and you make the world better one interaction at a time.
09:25.20
Andy Young
We choose to do that through IT because that’s where our skill set is.
09:25.45
Tim
That’s right.
09:28.56
Andy Young
And so it’s a lot easier working with somebody whose mission is like, hey, we want to make the world better.
09:28.65
Tim
Mm hmm.
09:33.84
Andy Young
We believe in the future. We think there’s hope out there. want to be part of that, not not part of everything we despise of capitalism, right? We want to be the
09:44.10
Andy Young
good things out there, you know, re re instilling that there’s value in service and making sure there’s honesty and transparency. Yeah.
09:51.88
Tim
The best place to start with Technologies.
09:53.98
Andy Young
That’s right. That’s right.
09:54.86
Tim
We got your back.
09:56.01
Andy Young
We do do things a little different. I think it kind of causes pause with some clients, to be quite honest, when we bring on new clients, they’re kind of like, well, so you put all of your notes in the invoices for us to read over.
10:04.79
Tim
Oh.
10:08.92
Andy Young
It’s like, yeah, because, you know, we want that transparency there.
10:11.67
Tim
Right. So you know what happened?
10:12.71
Andy Young
Yeah. Yeah. It takes our techs a little longer in the field to document and to make sure everything’s up to date. But, you know, not only do you have transparency on what really happened in that fix or that service call or that preventative maintenance, but, you know, you also have, you have a company that’s keeping stuff updated on our node side as well.
10:19.68
Tim
Right.
10:33.85
Andy Young
So that saves a lot of time because then your tech’s not on site calling 28 people.
10:34.48
Tim
Mm hmm.
10:39.17
Andy Young
Hey, when you’re out here last time, what’d you do? do I fix this? Yeah. Anyway. All right. Well, on the last story here. You know, a minute ago we were patting AWS on the back and then we turn around we start patting ourselves on the back.
10:55.83
Tim
should all see this while we’re doing this.
10:54.30
Andy Young
But hey, you know it’s all good.
10:57.42
Tim
Just remember.
10:59.01
Andy Young
Exactly. All right, last but not least, Ubuntu 25.10, Linux distribution.
11:04.74
Tim
Ew.
11:05.92
Andy Young
It’s making a big move. They’re replacing the classic pseudo tool, which is like command prompt or terminal if you’re using Mac or Unix or Windows or PowerShell for Windows.
11:17.65
Tim
Ew. Ew.
11:18.61
Andy Young
It’s how old I am. i still am like, me a good command prompt window.
11:22.20
Tim
3.1 or something.
11:24.02
Tim
Right.
11:24.74
Tim
Right. Hmm.
11:26.44
Andy Young
Oh, man. I remember Windows 3, like that was it.
11:30.62
Andy Young
That’s all you really had, right? If you didn’t know command prompt, you weren’t doing too much. You were doing something. Still had a GUI, but anyway.
11:37.98
Andy Young
Yeah, so you’ll want to plan for this update of sudo. What they’re going to be doing is making this new Rust-based version called sudo-rs, and it’s all about making privilege management more secure.
11:52.85
Tim
Right. Yeah, I can just imagine to go back in time and bring out the big book. Find that command. Put it in.
12:01.88
Andy Young
Yeah. You know, quick, quick side note here. My wife teaches library for elementary schools and people know that. And right now they’re doing this lesson and kindergartner through second grade.
12:15.47
Andy Young
They don’t know what a dictionary is.
12:18.90
Andy Young
And it’s wild to think, you know, we’re like four decades into this life. They’re in their first decade of life. There’s three decades difference between what we know and what they know. And they don’t even know what a dictionary is, which is, you know, Google.
12:36.00
Tim
I’m just going to put my back on that one.
12:37.85
Andy Young
Yeah, you know what dictionary I know what a thesaurus is.
12:40.92
Tim
right right Yeah, but yeah.
12:41.87
Andy Young
Yeah. Anyway, sorry. yeah Tell us more about Rusty.
12:48.85
Tim
Russ is known for its safety and reliability. So this is a smart move. If your business runs on UBON2, you’ll want to plan for this update. We’re already testing pseudo-RS in our lab to make sure our clients are ready.
13:00.35
Andy Young
Yes.
13:00.99
Tim
So.
13:01.79
Andy Young
And it’s a good reminder that security is always evolving. You know, I think it goes for physical security, digital security, cybersecurity, all of it.
13:06.84
Tim
Mm-hmm.
13:13.30
Andy Young
You you can’t just like put a lock on your door and never lock it. Right. There has to be active locking and unlocking and everything.
13:19.16
Tim
Just put it on there and just let go and see what happens.
13:21.35
Andy Young
Great. See what happens. Yeah. Maybe nobody will test it. Right. The lock’s there. There’s constant, constant evolution in that. And if you need help prepping for operating system changes or just want a security checkup, give us a shout.
13:35.45
Andy Young
It’s what we do. We come in and do full audits.
13:36.98
Tim
Right.
13:38.31
Andy Young
Even like, HIPAA audits, PCI i audits, DD2345, NIST 800-171, those type audits and can get you scores if you’re looking to get into defense contracts or government contracts, things like that.
13:47.81
Tim
Lots of audits. Mm-hmm.
13:53.06
Andy Young
We can be a partner with you on that as well. So, well, we’re reaching the end. But before we wrap up, let me give you all a quick rundown. of ways that you can support us.
14:04.76
Andy Young
So, you know, if you’ve listened and you’re kind of like this, they’re funny guys. And they have some good insights and I appreciate what they’re telling me. So here’s some things. We do manage service and we do IT projects.
14:15.44
Andy Young
We’ve done it for 20 plus years.
14:15.65
Tim
Mm-hmm.
14:16.88
Andy Young
So if you’re migrating to the cloud or upgrading your infrastructure, we deliver that reliable, right-sized IT solution. So we take into account what’s your budget.
14:23.91
Tim
Very
14:26.19
Andy Young
We know what fits well into budget. We look at what your, you know, done looks like as you paint done for us, we say, okay, well, you know, these are things that we’re going to need to change these, we might need to reprioritize look at later.
14:33.50
Tim
nice.
14:37.79
Andy Young
Yeah. We also do web hosting marketing, and search engine optimization. That’s all through sheepdog design studio, fast, secure us based hosting as well.
14:44.09
Tim
Very nice.
14:46.89
Andy Young
So if you’re looking for some good priced web hosting, that’s us based boom, check it out. It’s virtual private servers.
14:53.92
Andy Young
Yeah. It’s the bomb.
14:56.36
Tim
It
14:57.03
Andy Young
Yeah. And our, the best part is our little mascot, Rocky underdog story coming in to fight the big guys and knock them out.
15:04.48
Tim
He’s awesome.
15:07.97
Andy Young
Yeah. So anyway, get them.
15:09.01
Tim
Go get Rocky.
15:10.93
Andy Young
right. So then we got compliance, cybersecurity, VCIO and coaching through bunker cybersecurity. So these compliance assessments, you want managed service, you need strategic IT leadership.
15:16.89
Tim
Yes.
15:22.55
Andy Young
Come let us know. We’ll help you get protected, be future ready, all of that fun stuff.
15:27.49
Tim
And if you want to take a dive deeper into of these topics or you need help with your IT t roadmap, reach out to 825 Technologies. We’re here to make IT work for you.
15:38.08
Andy Young
Yeah. Speaking of roadmaps, when’s the last time you used an old road atlas?
15:43.92
Tim
Long time.
15:45.22
Andy Young
don’t know, man. Like a dictionary. You’re going to laugh at me. I still have a Rand McNally map book in the back of my car.
15:54.28
Tim
Hey, something happens, it’s good to have it.
15:54.37
Andy Young
That’s right. You never know.
15:58.10
Tim
You should give it to your daughters and say, well, you don’t have a dictionary. We have this.
16:02.62
Andy Young
Our next road trip.
16:04.65
Tim
I’ll use it.
16:05.76
Andy Young
Oh, that’s a good idea. All right. Well, hey, thanks everybody for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a remark or comment on Spotify or Apple.
16:16.46
Andy Young
Join us next week. We’ve got some really interesting insights and practical advice about systems and why your company needs them. So we’ll see you next time on the 825 Technology Podcast.
