Our team is truly global, and here are just a few photos of our Nerds in action all around the world. Check out the rest of our photos at NerdSpotting.com.
Weekly NerdSpotting Round-Up
MailTones – Email Keyword Push Notifications for your iPhone
Most of us receive a LOT of email, and it can be difficult to stay on top of it at times. Of course, some are more important than others, but it’s easy for it to get pushed down as the new stuff comes in, allowing them to be possibly forgotten. MailTones helps reduce the chances of this by sending you push notifications on your iPhone.
MailTones is an iPhone app that immediately alerts you the second emails with certain keywords arrive in your inbox.
First, you need to filter the keywords in your email account. This is done with relative ease in Gmail (gear icon > settings > filters tab > create new filter).
Tell it which keywords you want it filtered (subject, or ‘has the words’ in the body of the email), and it gives you the option to forward emails with those keywords to another email account.
The ‘from’ field defines who sends you the emails, the ‘to’ field defines who the email is being sent to.
When you start using the MailTones app, it will automatically give you an email address to use (xxxxxxx@mailtones.net). That’s what you want to give GMail.
To do that, click on ‘continue’, and type in your MailTones address.
You will need to research on your own how to add these kinds of filters if you use another email provider, or get a Nerd to help you..
Next, open up MailTones and tell it which keywords you’ve chosen, and the associated sound you want to hear when MailTones alerts you.
That’s pretty much it. You can follow this process for as many keywords as you want. You can have it alert you to emails that require immediate action, or colleagues or clients that you really want to impress by replying to their emails quickly.
To be clear, you can’t check or reply to your email in this app. You will need to open up your regular email program to do that.
How to Use the Backup and Restore Wizard in Windows 7
Backing up your stuff is important, but remembering to do it, and having to do it manually is nothing short of a hassle, and it’s why so many people simply can’t be bothered to do it. Thee Backup and Restore wizard in Windows 7 eliminates the hassle, and the excuses for not keeping current backups of your files.
The wizard contains an impressive array of options, including scheduling what and when to do the backups, and the kind of backups to create. The catch – the computer must be on, and if you’re using an external hard drive, it must be connected, unlike off-site backup solutions, which initially create a full backup, followed by incremental backups uploaded while the computer is idle.
In the process of creating a backup, you will be given the option to choose the folders you want to backup. Although this can be a one-time process, you can edit your backup settings in preparation for the next scheduled backup. There is a checkbox at the bottom to ‘include a system image of drives (c:). This will create a system image, as opposed to only backing up user files.
Image source: www.howtogeek.com
Once you have chosen the type of backup to create, you can set a schedule for how often you want Windows to automatically perform the backup. Sunday evening at 7pm is the default, but it can be changed to whatever you like.
Image source: www.howtogeek.com
Another useful feature of the Backup and Restore Wizard is it’s ability to make system images, which takes a snapshot of your hard drive and Windows in it’s current state, programs and all, and allows you to store it in a location of your choice – be warned, though – it will be quite large, and should be stored on an external hard drive.
There is an article on howtogeek.com goes into much more detail in a step by step guide on how to create backups in Windows 7 using the Backup and Restore Wizard. Creating regular backups is a great habit to get into, and Windows 7 makes it that much easier to do – hopefully motivating more people to make the effort, so less people make the mistake of losing everything before that lesson is learned.
That being said, a local copy sitting beside your computer is just as much at risk as the original copy of data on your computer. We recommend also storing user data off-site with a service like Nerds Backup.
Something we missed? Or something you think should be added to this article? Please leave a comment below, post a message on our Facebook fan page, or send us a tweet!
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our MISSION is our purpose…
We’re passionate about driving up the Pleasure… Productivity… & Profitability of traditional and leading edge technology for our Clients!
our VALUES are our CHARGE pillars defining our Client & team interactions …
C – confident competent CEO’s (Capability Expansion Orchestrators)
H – Honest
A – Attitudes of humility
R – Responsive & Resourceful
G – Goal & destination focused
E – Engaging & enthusiastic!
… and the vast bulk of our Client comments reflect this!
Some Canadian Companies Lacking Proper Security Measures to Protect Personal Data
A recent story in the Windsor Star highlights the need for improve security measures at Canadian companies. Simply having passwords is not enough.
All companies use passwords, but nearly half do not require that they are difficult to guess, and almost a third of companies never require employees regularly change their passwords.
“Using passwords is like locking your front door,” the Privacy Commissioner said in a statement. “They can be a very simple and effective way to protect valuable personal information, but simply setting a password is not enough to thwart today’s savvy online criminals — passwords must to be complex and dynamic.”
Personal information, such as passwords, aren’t just stored on servers and personal computers anymore. A good portion can be found on USB stick, laptops, and tablets.
“Roughly half of the businesses that reported using portable devices, such as laptops, USB sticks and tablets,” the Windsor Star explains. “Portable devices are more likely to fall into the wrong hands by being lost or stolen.”
If personal data is stored on a personal device, using encryption is a must. If you are unsure of the steps that need to be taken to encrypt your data, ask a Nerd! Alternatively, having a password that is so complicated that you need to write it on a piece of paper by your computer defeats the purpose. It is better to associate your password with a word, or string of words.
Taking steps to protect the personal data on devices, whether they be workstations or smartphones, is essential in today’s business world. If you would like more information on other steps you can take, give us a call today at 1-877-MY-NERDS!
Frustrations with Technology
It’s the year 2012, the last time I checked, and yet here are some of the top issues our first-time clients all over are still facing a regular basis:
- No shared calendars.
Of course this one is only important if you have team members you work with.- One member may be on their own desktop calendar.
- another operates on a mobile.
- till another likes and uses and old paper calendar.
- Many different contact files.
- The accounting software has the right address, hopefully.
- The phone contacts have the right phone number.
- The computer address book has the right email addresses.
But nothing is centralized with any accuracy.
- Disjointed customer data.
- Accounting software has sales data. Only a few have access.
- Email is in salesperson’s mailbox. He’s on vacation.
- Product information is on the supplier’s portal. Who knows where the password is.
- Serial numbers of installed equipment are in good old-fashioned binders. You’d be surprised how much information is still in non-digital format!
- Islands of information.
- Peter keeps track of customer service issues in a Word file.
- Everyone’s work schedule is circulated in a spreadsheet.
- Passwords are safely stored in the accountant’s smartphone.
- Missing contact info.
- Cannot access office sent items.
- Cannot preview attachments.
- Calendar invites don’t work.
Many business owners just assume that this is the way it must be. You just may want to check out MYbusinessOS.com.
WooThemes Framework shortcode exploit has been fixed
For anyone that is using a WordPress Woothemes Template/Theme should be aware that they have recently released a Framework download to resolve a security vulnerability they have identified. Another reason to respect WordPress and those select companies that are releasing premium template themes. They are always on top of the ever present threats from hackers exploiting website vulnerabilities, and they take the initiative to resolve that threat for their clients.
If you are currently a client of Nerds On Site, and you aren’t sure if you have a WooThemes Theme installed on your site don’t hesitate to contact us by CLICKING HERE!
To resolve your Framework issues yourself if you have not already, or if you just want more information on the issues please CLICK HERE!
If you do decide to resolve the issues yourself, please remember to backup your current site before you do. At least backup the theme folder, but we recommend you do a full site backup both of the actual files through FTP, and the database. That way you can ensure your website has zero downtime, and upon and unforeseen issues with resolving the Framework fix, you can contact WooThemes for more information.
7 Ways to Speed Up Your Business Computers
A slow computer will hurt your bottom line as staff wait for applications to load and work. When you add it up, minutes turn into hours, which turn into days of each month of unproductive time spent waiting for the computer to do what it needs to do. In addition, it can result in your I.T. department and consultants spending time troubleshooting various issues related to the sluggish systems.
There is an excellent article up on Mashable that describes 7 things that can be done to speed up a slow workstation – for those who feel comfortable doing such things, or have the time to dedicate to it.
If you don’t feel comfortable performing these tasks, and would rather take that time to focus on your business, call a Nerd! We can take the necessary steps to speed up your workstations, and find out *why* a system is being sluggish. A slow computer can point to larger issues, which we will pinpoint and find solutions for. In some cases, we may recommend getting a new computer, as your money may be better invested in a new system instead of fixing the old one.
That said, there are some very good tips in the article, which goes on to say that age, malware, and unneeded applications also slow down computers.
“While age is a commonly cited cause of slow PC performance, there are usually additional reasons,” explains the Mashable article. “Many users have no idea that their computers are bogged down with unneeded applications, adware (malware), cookies, and massive amounts of background processes. Left unaddressed, these issues hinder PC performance, decrease productivity, and increase the amount of time spent dealing with IT problems. So what can be done? Here are seven things.”
Comparing our Shared Email and Google Apps
There are many options for email service today, and Nerds On Site offers and support some of the biggest and best. Today we’d like to make a quick comparison between two of them: our shared email services and Google Apps. Our shared email service is built on SmarterMail 8 Enterprise. To give a quick overview, lets take a look at 7 comparison points:
- Storage
Google Apps provides business users with 25GB of storage, but it’s important to keep in mind that files you have in Google Docs counts towards this total storage number. Currently, our shared email services offer unlimited storage, with a few of our clients currently using over 50GB of storage per mailbox. - Calendaring and Task Management
Google Calendar allows you to easily share calendars with colleagues, and also create shared calendars for a team approach. Google Calendar also includes a task management tool, though it is a bit underpowered at this time. For example, tasks can be easily added with due dates, but not easily shared with co-workers. By comparison, our shared mail platform offers a very robust and mature task management system, allowing for tasks to be colour coded, grouped and sorted. Emails can be converted to tasks and you can easily see the history of all emails sent or received between you and someone in your address book. The calendar in SmarterMail is also very robust, allowing for shared calendars and even includes a built-in 7 day weather forecast. - Spam Filtering, Security and Reliability
Our team have vastly improved SmarterMail’s already strong reputation as a enterprise-class application by integrating SpamExperts‘s amazing spam filtering into our shared email offering. All clients are protected by SpamExperts 99.98% accurate spam filter, with daily spam quarantine reports. In addition, email archiving is available to ensure that you meet all regulatory requirements. Google’s spam filtering features a community-driven system, which generally works quite well. Some criticism has been levelled at Google for showing ads in their mail interface that is driven by keywords in your email, potentially violating your privacy. Reliability of Google mail is pretty good with only a few widely publicized disruptions in it’s service. By comparison, we publicly publish our availability statistics at trust.nerdsisp.com. - Usability
The Google webmail system loads very fast, with Google placing a premium on efficiency and load time. The SmarterMail webmail interface isn’t as quick loading as Google mail, but is very slick and familiar as it is modelled after some of the most popular email desktop clients. - Mobile Access
Gmail offers a version optimized for mobile devices as well as the ability to sync with iOS and Android devices. Our shared email platform also offers tight integration with many mobile devices, including Blackberry, iOS and Android devices.
Google Apps is a very different product than our shared email platform, and it has many more features not discussed here, including Google Docs. Every business has different needs, and we have many email solutions that we can offer you, from shared email to hosted Exchange services from AppRiver. Get in contact with our team to learn just which solution might best suit your needs!
Dropbox vs Alternatives – A Guide to Choosing the Service That’s Right for You
Cloud storage services are all the rage these days, as they allow for synchronization of your data across multiple devices and online, effectively also acting as a backup solution. They’re also easy to use and inexpensive.
The Verge did a recently thorough comparison article on this very topic, comparing all of the most well known cloud storage solutions, allowing for an easy to understand approach when it comes to choosing the service that’s right for you.
In a recent Security Now podcast episode, Steve Gibson also did a detailed review from a security standpoint of all the major cloud storage services, which can be a dealbreaker, depending on how security conscience you are, and what type of data you’re adding to these services.
The article was prompted by Microsoft’s revamped Skydrive, which is Microsoft’s entry into the mix. It offers 7GB of free storage (Dropbox and others only offer 2GB).
“SkyDrive starts things off right by offering 7GB of free storage, which is best in class,” explains the Verge article. “If you move quickly (and have used SkyDrive before), you can quickly nab 25GB of total free storage space. SkyDrive really excels at syncing documents created using OneNote and other Microsoft Office products like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.”
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