While you can take many security precautions to protect your organization, a cyber attack is always possible because of human error. Microsoft, however, is trying to change this. In the coming weeks, the technology giant plans to launch a new security feature for Outlook, but only if you’re an Office 365 user. Here’s how it can help your business. Read more
A good looking page will determine how many people trust a website. This is especially true for small business owners trying to establish their company’s identity online. But with so many similar businesses to compete with, how can you stand out from the crowd? This is why it’s even more important to stay on top of web design trends to attract more visitors. Consider using some of these web design ideas on your own website to stay ahead of the competition.
Scrolling is a convenient method for traversing a website. Instead of navigating through confusing menus and drop-down tabs, a scrolling one-page site has a cleaner look and is usually more intuitive for the user. This web design style is definitely more important today, now that people have grown more accustomed to mobile web browsing. Read more
Love it or hate it, mobile technology in the workplace is here to stay. While more and more companies are utilizing it as a way to up their productivity, there is a right and a wrong way to go about it. Here are four tips to help you successfully integrate mobile devices into your organization to create a more efficient and productive business.
Some work tasks just aren’t cut out for mobile use. While using a mobile phone or tablet to send emails is an effective way to work on the go, trying to write long form reports on these same devices is a bad idea. As a general guideline, small tasks such as email, viewing documents, using search engines and project management apps are good for mobile work. Anything that is too detailed is probably better suited for a computer or laptop. Lastly, only train your employees to use and learn the mobile devices and programs that make sense for their role. If you want them to be most efficient, you don’t want to overwhelm them with every mobile tool your business uses. Read more
Bring your own device (BYOD) strategy is when an employee uses their personal mobile device to work with your company from anywhere. This strategy can bring about many advantages to your business such as increased efficiency and convenience. However, this can also bring a number of security risks for your IT infrastructure and data. If you’re thinking of incorporating BYOD in your office, consider some of the risks involved before making a decision. Read more
At work, we depend on several apps to be more productive around the office. However, with so many of them open in our web browsers, it can be a drag to constantly click in and out of tabs just to get the information we need. Fortunately, Office 365 Connectors for Groups allows you to stay on top of all the third party services your company is using. So how, exactly, do these connectors make your life easier? Here are a few things you need to know about the new Office 365 feature.
Office 365 Connectors enable users to access third party apps and services within their Outlook groups, rather than having to scour through dozens of windows to access a specific application. This new feature allows you to keep your company’s discussion in one place, and enables your employees to stay up-to-date regardless of the service used to broadcast an event. For example, your team members can be informed about a particular hashtag that your company is following on Twitter without having to explicitly open the page. Groups aren’t limited to one particular service either. With connectors you can use Twitter, Trello, Mailchimp, Bing, UserVoice and over 50 other services. Read more
Your technology needs to produce a return on investment. If it doesn’t, you’re wasting you and your staff’s time and money. But how can you ensure you gain that coveted ROI you’re after? What does it actually mean to have a positive ROI? And how can you tell if you have one? Here are a few tips for calculating the true costs of a new technology investment.
What does it mean to have a positive return on investment? It’s pretty simple. A positive ROI means the results a technology produces are greater than or equal to the amount of time and money invested. Obviously you want a positive ROI, but when is the right time to consider it? Should it be before or after you make a technology purchase? The answer is both. Before purchasing, you want to carefully consider whether a technology service or product is worth your money. Then months after you’ve implemented it, you should analyze whether or not you made a good investment. Doing this enables you to learn from your mistakes (if you made one) and make a wiser technology purchase next time. Read more
Your computer has been acting up a lot lately. It keeps crashing, it’s slow and, to top it off, you keep getting pop-ups you don’t want to see. If these problems keep occurring then your computer may have a virus. So is there a way to prevent things like this from happening again? While there are various antivirus solutions you can take, it’s best to know how malware affects your computer first so you can quickly recognize and deal with the problem. These are a few ways to find out if your computer has a virus before it’s too late.
The most common symptom of a malware infection is a slow running computer. Are your operating systems and programs taking a while to start up? Is your data bandwidth suspiciously slow? If so, your computer may potentially have a virus. Read more
Ads are becoming increasingly intrusive on today’s web browsers. They can slow down the load time of pages, and cause potential security and privacy issues. So it’s no surprise that ad blockers are becoming more and more popular. However, as they do, they’re also cutting into the revenue of online advertisers. With the upcoming release of Opera’s new ad blocker that’s incorporated directly into the browser, business owners may be both excited and disturbed. On one hand, their own personal browsing experience will be smoother with less disruptive ads, and on another their advertising reach may become more limited.
When Opera’s new ad blocking feature becomes live, it will be switched off by default. However, when an ad is causing a web page to slow down, the user will be prompted to turn it on. If you’re an Opera user who’d like to do this for yourself, simply click the shield icon in the upper right hand corner of your browser. For whatever reason, if you don’t want to block ads for a specific website, you’ll also have that option, which can be adjusted in the browser’s settings.
One spokeswoman for Opera remarked, “Ad-blocking technology is an opportunity and a wake-up call to the advertising industry to pay attention to what consumers are actually saying.” In other words, consumers are annoyed with intrusive ads that are irrelevant, and Opera believes this is an opportunity for advertisers to create better, more engaging ads. When that happens, ad blocking will become less of an issue.
Ad blocking is not new, as other browsers provide a similar service. The only difference is that competitors like Google Chrome and Firefox use extensions to enable this feature. However, Opera has said that with the use of their native ad blocker, their browser on average runs 45% faster than using Google Chrome with the AdBlock Plus extension and 21% faster than using Firefox with that same extension. In today’s browser competition, and really the world in general, speed is currency. And this could cause users to abandon their current browser and flock to Opera.
You should bear in mind that right now, Opera isn’t an incredibly popular browser. According to the online statistics service W3Counter, Opera was only used by 3% of all Internet users this past February, while Google Chrome was used by 47.5%. With that said, many of Opera’s technological advances have later caught on with other major browsers. For example, Opera pioneered both pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing, which are now the norm for major browsers.
So if your business heavily relies on online advertisements, should you be worried? Unfortunately only time will tell. With that said, it’s likely not time to panic just yet.
Some companies, like Forbes and New York Times, are already taking action, and experimenting with preventing ad blocking users to access their site. While this probably isn’t an option for you just yet, there are other marketing avenues you can explore. For example, businesses that rely on inbound marketing, which drives users to your business by providing free valuable content, will see little effect (if any) by Opera’s new ad blocking feature. Also, it should be noted that Opera’s ad blocker will not block all ads. It is predominantly focusing on those that are intrusive to users and cause browsing slow down. So if you’re a big on those pesky flash ads that many Internet users despise, it’s likely wise to shift focus to creating leaner, more engaging ads. They’re much less likely to be blocked.
Want to learn more about ad blocking, browsers or cloud technology? Send us a message. We’re happy to help in anyway we can.
So you’ve been using Office 365 for you business for quite some time now. But did you know there are a few nifty features that you can use to make work just a little bit easier? From cutting down tedious tasks to getting work done with multiple people at the same time, Office 365 has got you covered. Here are some hidden (and not so hidden) tips and tricks to help make the most out of this cloud service.
With Office 365, people can work together on any Word, PowerPoint or Excel document in real time. This means multiple people can edit a document, figure out what changes have been made and who made them.
So if your employees are still creating documents by themselves, sending them over to their coworkers by email, and silently waiting for a reply, then this Office 365 feature can help cut down on unnecessary email waiting time.
In addition to being able to work together on a single document, you can also verbally discuss the edits over Skype. This application lets you talk to everyone who is working on the document with a simple click of a button. You can also keep talking to your coworkers even after you’ve left the Office document session.
Is the file you’re sending too big? With the business editor of Office 365, you won’t have to worry about compressing your documents before sending them over email. You can simply attach the link to the file on your cloud application (Outlook Web App) and people with access to the link can immediately begin editing.
Sometimes you just need that second opinion when you’re picking images for your presentation. That’s where Office Sway comes in. Basically, the application employs Bing image search to locate possible images that you can use for your presentation based on the words you are using.
Forgot your laser pointer on the day of your presentation? Simply go into presentation mode and hold Ctrl and the Left-Click mouse button to replace your mouse cursor with a laser pointer.
This OneNote feature allows you to convert your electronic scribbles into text in just a few steps. Simply select the “Lasso Select” tool and circle the area you want edited and choose the “Ink to Text” option.
Printing out a document to sign it and then scanning it back to digital format is a bit outdated. However, with the Docusign app, you can setup your own electronic signature and sign documents easily from any device.
Office 365 has built in new features that will allow Excel to better present and format your data. Simply select the cells that you would want in a graph or table, open the Quick Analysis tool and pick however you would like to visually represent your information. Voila! Instant chart.
Speaking of visual representation, did you know that you can convert your data into images? Provided that your data takes note of geographic locations, the Power Map feature can immediately distribute your recorded facts and figures over a 3D map.
You have a variety of choices when creating PDF files from word documents. Exporting your word documents into PDF files can be done by going to File>Export>Create PDF/XPS. You also have the option of saving just a portion of a file by indicating the pages you want to only be converted into PDF.
On the other hand, if you would like to edit a PDF, just open the file in the word document, where the PDF content will be opened in a new file. From here, you can copy and edit any content, images or diagrams.
Consider utilizing some or all of these features to make the most out of Office 365 and make your life a bit easier. If you’d like to know more about other features that Office 365 has to offer, give us a call.
