Takeaway:  Understanding Cloud Computing for technological infrastructures.

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing resources as a service over the Internet.  The varieties of services offered are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) Desktop as a Service (DaaS) and Network as a Service (NaaS).

Scalability, fast provisioning and agility help all organizations, big and small, reach monetary growth.  

There are a few major misunderstandings associated with joining the Cloud Computing revolution, such as:

It’s A Trend:

Cloud computing is a credible and efficient tool with longevity.  If you use social media, eBay, Gmail or Online Banking, you are already using Cloud Computing.

It’s not as Secure:

Cloud computing is a significantly safe way to store, share and secure your data.  Client’s are highly recommended to use the Cloud’s host-based firewall.  Also available are host-based intrusion protection programs specialized for virtual machines and Cloud Clients

(Example –  Trend Micro Deep Security or Symantec O3). 

It’s Costly:

Even with the move to the cloud and monthly costs, organizations could save money long term on IT Management Services.

It’s Complicated:

There are many different types of Cloud Computing to choose from that should make executing hassle-free.

It’s only for Large Organizations:

The Cloud is not reserved for Large Organizations only.  Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (SaaS or DaaS) can be a cost-effective solution for organizations of any size. 

Changes are not strategic:

Plans are setup to acquire full benefits offered by Cloud Computing by integrating corporate strategy and technology with the advantage of using internal resources.

Cloud is inoperable if the Internet goes down:

Having another provider with a secondary connection is a logical setup for all companies.  Most organizations already operate with a connectivity “safety net”.

To migrate your business to Cloud Computing, please visit BigBeagle.com

The ten most popular Microsoft Office tips

Takeaway:  Susan Harkins lists ten most popular Office tips published in the Windows and Office Blog, and the now inactive Office Blog.

When considering tips to share, think about ease-of-use and efficiency. A few naturally rise to the top as your favorites. For your commemoration, here are 10 of 2012’s most popular posts from both the Office Blog, which was deactivated in mid-2012, and the current Windows and Office Blog. Thank you for reading, and thank you for sharing your thoughts and enhancements with one another throughout the year.

1: A quick Word trick for typing text into a scanned document

The response to this limited technique surprised me. It’s something only a few will use, but if you’re one of those few, it can be a big help! I was pleasantly surprised at the positive response it received and the way readers enhanced the technique.

2: Use Word macros to save your place in a document

These two short macros make quick work of bookmarking work areas in a Word document. When the built-in navigation techniques just don’t get the job done for you, consider these macros or one of the alternative methods that readers shared.

3: A quick and dirty way to compare columns of Excel data

This quick Go To comparison solution is great for a one-time task. Comparing Excel data is a common task, and I receive frequent questions for solutions. This solution is a great one to add to your bag of tricks.

4: Demystify Excel’s PivotTable feature with this simple method

Sometimes a great tip doesn’t offer a specific solution, but rather guides you to using a feature more efficiently and effectively. Users tend to ignore Excel’s pivot table feature because they don’t really understand it – hence this blog post offers some quick insight into how to use this feature without mind-bending tricks.

5: Create a dynamic Excel chart and make your own dashboard

This blog post is one of my favorites. I enjoyed sharing the technique, but more than that, I loved the way the readers jumped in to help one another with a step I accidentally omitted in the instructions. TechRepublic readers rock!

6: A quick Excel keyboard trick for selecting large ranges

This technique uses Go To ([F5]) in an unusual way – to anchor two cells, creating a range. The ensuing conversation shared a number of great selection tips!

7: Three tips for rounding Excel time values

Using the right function can help you round up your rounding woes. Excel offers three rounding functions and knowing them all will round out your skills nicely. (Okay, I promise to stop that.)

8: Three things you must do when you inherit an Excel workbook

I review a lot of workbooks, so this blog was one of my favorites to write. In my experience, performing these three quick tasks when inheriting a workbook can speed up your troubleshooting time. Fortunately, it sparked some insightful conversation into what others do.

9: Launch Word with the most recently used document

Reader response sometimes surprises me, as it did for this easy technique. I hadn’t expected so many great alternatives from the readers.

10: Run a list of rolling credits at the end of your PowerPoint presentation

I’m glad a PowerPoint technique made the top list, but it wasn’t because the readers loved my technique. Mostly, the conversation centered on the typo I missed, and then my lack of proper contrition for said typo. It was fun while it lasted.

Takeaway:  Risks with staying with Windows XP after April 8, 2014.

Since being release worldwide on October 25, 2001, Windows XP has become one of the most popular versions of Windows.  OEM and retail sales of Windows XP ended in June 2008, while smaller OEMs continued to sell the Operating System until January of 2009.

On April 10, 2012, Microsoft officially announced that as of April 8, 2014 they will end extended support for Windows XP and Office 2003, after which no new bug fixes or patches will be issued.

Organizations may be taking a spontaneous risk and assume that Window’s XP’s prolonged life means major vulnerabilities have been acknowledged and dealt with.  If XP were secure, there still might be application-level vulnerabilities.  Even the ranges of security breaches are inadequate to persuade some organizations that are still using Windows XP to upgrade.  The dynamics that have safeguarded XP’s success are now working against the organizations that stuck by the operating system.

A major aspect attackers assess during their investigation is the operating system and the applications used within an organization.  With Microsoft ending their support, the vendors for applications running on it will most likely end support.

On the other hand, those preparing to continue using XP after the cut-off date, are going to be in a unpleasant situation trying to protect their intellectual property, but can take certain steps to limit exposure to risk.  There are specific technologies you could deploy that will permit you to remain using legacy systems.  Mitigating technologies like Host-Based Intrusion Protection will be able to identify that a vulnerability exists and make that vulnerability difficult/impossible to exploit by applying a virtual patch to those non-supported environments.

However, XP’s acceptance is down to the technology itself and an operating system format that people are content with.  The significant changes with Windows Vista, Windows 7 and especially Windows 8 are the reason people are resistant to change.

To protect and upgrade your home or business

 please contact us 856-745-9990

Takeaway:  Alternative options for mail client’s that are not as costly as Outlook but offer the same features.

Outlook is one of the most widely used email clients in the business world.  For smaller companies, there are email clients that provide cost-effective solutions.  Other email clients offer a variety of features that are comparable to Outlook.  The most significant means of communication in the office is email; communication will suffer if the email client does not work well with the organizations requirements. 

Opera Mail

Opera Mail is free and offered for Windows, Mac and Linux.  This e-mail client supports POP, IMAP (no Exchange support), newsgroups, RSS, and Atom feed.  Opera mail has a fast and simple user interface, thread views, spam protection and allows you to browse websites.

Dreammail

Dreammail is free and offered for Windows XP/Vista/7.  This e-mail client supports POP3, RSS, and ESMTP/Google/Yahoo.  Dreammail has multiple accounts and multiple-users setup, templates, signature options, anti-spam, address book, message filtering and a web-mail tool.

iScribe

iScribe is free and offered for Windows and Linux.  This e-mail client supports POP3 and IMAP, as well as international standards.  iScribe has built-in baysian span filter, frequent updates and can be used from a portable drive.

Postbox

Postbox is $9.95 per license and offered for Windows and Mac.  This e-mail client is best for Gmail but it also supports POP and IMAP.  Postbox has native Gmail label support, fast access to your favorite accounts, social networking integration and you can add Dropbox services.

Evolution Mail

Evolution is free and offered for Linux (open source).  This e-mail client supports POP, IMAP and Exchange.  Evolution has calendar, tasks, contacts, memos, LDAP compatibility, folder search, encryption, multiple accounts, server support, default plugins, as well as, additional plugins.

The innovative plan for Windows 8 was to connect the mature personal computer generation with the prospering one of smartphones and tablets.

Many users are finding difficulty with adapting to the new Operating System.  Two major requests for Windows 8.1 (code-named “Blue”) is to bring back the Start button and boot-to-desktop feature.  Currently, the Start button is located in “Charms” which is a secondary taskbar set on the right-side of the screen.  The initial boot screen has much larger icons with live tiles.  Live tiles are software widgets that present dynamic content.

Microsoft is considering allowing users to restore the Start button and initially boot to the traditional desktop with Windows 8.1 (code-named “Blue”).

If Microsoft decides to add the Start button or boot-to-desktop feature to Blue, it will not be the first time a Windows Operating System has changed the user interface backwards to satisfy the users.

Microsoft has still not announced a release date for Windows Blue.  Likely, more information will arise from the Microsoft Build Developer Conference on June 26 – 28, 2013.

Takeaway:  Specifications break down of the top four prominent smartphones.

In the United States the top four smartphones are Samsung Galaxy SIII, iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy Note II and Motorola Razr Maxx HD.  The chart compares mobile carriers, platform, hardware, networks/ Wi-Fi, display, camera and battery for all four leading phones.

If you’re thinking about buying a new smartphone, the chart below will be a quick guide with the necessary feature-to-feature comparisons to make a worthy choice.

Takeaway: When equipment reaches the end of its useful life, IT must either dispose of it or find it a new home. Here are several good ways to handle the situation.

Few companies amortize their computing equipment for more than three years of useful life. So once computing assets reach the end of the line, what do you do with them? In 2013, some best practice answers remain the same, but others are new. Here’s a checklist for dealing with old IT equipment.

1: Meet Your Green Requirements

In some industries and geographical areas, companies are now required to demonstrate adherence to green standards and environmental sustainability. One way to show compliance is by having environmentally effective policies for disposing of old computing equipment. In doing so, you also contribute to corporate sustainability compliance. There is value in that.

2: Work with Local Schools

Corporate IT can partner with local schools by donating good but used equipment that they can use for technology projects. Some companies take this goodwill effort even further by partnering with schools in tech development programs that include student internships with the company. “Proven” interns from these programs can make excellent IT hires. The company also develops a great reputation in the community.

3: Use Older Equipment for Training and Testing

Especially in thin client application environments that don’t depend on compute-in-the-box (think cloud), older equipment is ideal for training, which historically operates on thin budgets and is always looking for a resource infusion.

You can also use older equipment for testing purposes, as long as your test results will accurately emulate the production environment they are targeted for.

4: Cannibalize

Some older equipment can be used as spare part sources if there is enough version compatibility between the old and the new equipment. Replacement disk drives are a great example.

5: Work your Trade-ins (lease/buy)

Never underestimate your ability to trade up to new equipment by turning in your old equipment. You can secure a discount that may be as much as one-third of your new equipment retail price. If you lease equipment instead of buying it, a mechanism in the lease contract allows you to get credit for older equipment on the lease that you are exchanging for new.

6: Sell to the Third-party Market

Especially for power servers, mainframes, and disk drives, you can usually find a third-party reseller of older equipment that will buy it from you (only to resell it to another company). However, to qualify your equipment for this market, you must first recertify it with its original vendor. In the equipment re-certification process, the vendor examines and (if necessary) repairs the equipment to make sure it is production-ready.

7: Cycle Down Older Equipment to Low Power Users

In most companies, the high power users are in areas like finance and engineering. Users requiring desktop or laptop computers with fewer bells and whistles might be in the warehouse, the factory, or in work locations where there is a lot of environmental interference (dust, etc.), which you don’t want to subject your newest equipment to. Many companies have a downward rotation cycle they apply to desktop and laptop computers that cycles these assets into lower-power user groups after a certain time frame. By using this strategy, companies can often extend the life cycles of these assets for two or more years.

8: Sell or Auction Older Equipment to Employee

Many employees look for inexpensive laptops that they and their children can use at home or at school. If they can purchase a nice computer that might not be the latest and greatest but that still works and fits their budgets, they are happy to take an older piece of equipment off your hands.

9: Donate to Charities

Charities are always looking for free computing equipment that can run their operations. However, never approach them with an eye toward dumping off equipment that is so antiquated it won’t support Internet or run a current word processor or spreadsheet program. In fact, many charities have wised up to the old “dump it” approach and now set minimum standards for accepting older equipment (e.g., “must at least run a Windows 7 operating system”).

10: Sell for Scrap

Companies used to give away old equipment to recycling.  But in today’s lucrative scrap metal market, the goal instead should be to sell this equipment to scrappers.

If you are looking to purchase new equipment please contact us at (856) 745-9990. 

Takeaway: From diagnostic tools to antivirus to backup utilities, this list of freebies will help you do more with less.

If you’re trying to stretch a thin IT budget, you probably can’t afford a lot of pricey tools. Luckily, a number of highly useful tools are available for free. Some of them even work better and are more efficient than their costlier alternatives.

1: ComboFix

When the standard antivirus/malware software can’t seem to find the problem, ComboFix almost always does. It also looks for and removes most rootkits and Trojans. To use this tool, you must completely disable all antivirus solutions (and you should completely remove AVG). Caution: If ComboFix is not used properly, it can wreak havoc on the machine you’re trying to fix.

2: ProduKey

ProduKey will help you get product keys from installed applications so that when you need to migrate to a new machine, you can continue using those costly licenses. ProduKey will recover keys from more than 1,000 software titles, including Microsoft Office, Adobe, and Symantec. When you use this tool, you will have both the product ID and the product key; the ID is important because it will tell you which version of the software is installed.

3: Hiren’s BootCD

Hiren’s BootCD is a one-stop-shop Linux boot disk that can help you pull off a number of small miracles. Its tools include Antivir, ClamWin, ComboFix, Clonedisk, Image for Windows, BIOS Cracker, 7-Zip, Bulk Rename, Mini Windows XP, CCleaner, and Notepad++, among others. This single bootable disk could easily be the only tool you need.

4: Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials is one of the better free antivirus tools available. Its tagline, “The anti-annoying, anti-expensive, anti-virus program,” is true. When the firm I work with was looking for a new free solution, we tested Microsoft Security Essentials against AVG Free and Avast Free and found Microsoft Security Essentials to be superior, less intrusive, and less resource intensive.

Note: Microsoft Security Essentials can be used for free for up to 10 PCs. Beyond that, you can purchase the business version, System Center Endpoint Protection.

5: WinDirStat

WinDirStat is the program you need when you must know what is taking up the space on a hard drive. When C drives begin to fill up, performance degrades rapidly. It’s essential to have a tool to help you discern what is gobbling up the precious space on a machine, and WinDirStat is the foremost app for getting this information quickly.

6: CCleaner

CCleaner gets rid of temporary files and Windows Registry problems faster than any other tool. When a machine is having problems, this is almost always the tool I use first. CCleaner also helps ensure privacy by getting rid of traces left behind (such as cookies) by Web browsers.

Note: It is legal to use CCleaner Free for business use. However, CCleaner Business Editioncomes with a few more features (including one-click cleaning) than the free version.

7: Defraggler

Defraggler blows away the defragmenting application in all Windows operating systems. It’s faster, more reliable, and more flexible than the built-in tools. With Defraggler, you can defrag a single file or an entire drive. Defraggler supports NTFS and FAT32 systems.

8: 7-Zip

7-Zip is the best file archiver/compression tool (outside of Linux command-line tools). It’s open source and works on multiple platforms. Once you install it, you will find 7-Zip has Explorer support and a simple GUI tool that any level of user can manage.

9: SyncBack

SyncBack is a reliable, easy-to-use backup utility. No, you won’t be recovering from bare metal, but you can save your precious data. SyncBack can synchronize data to the same drive, a different drive or medium (CDRW, CompactFlash, etc.), an FTP server, a network, or a zip archive.

10: FileZilla

FileZilla reminds you that the cloud has not made FTP useless. There are plenty of reasons you might need FTP, so why not use one of the best and most cost effective FTP clients? And if you need an easy-to-use FTP server to slap up on your Windows machines, FileZilla has one.

Summary: Microsoft’s flagship mail service for consumers gets a new name and a “modern” Metro-style interface. Here’s how to sign up for a preview and what to expect. So long, Hotmail. It was nice to know you. Microsoft unveiled a major update to its consumer mail platform today, with a new look, a slew of new features, and a new name that is surprisingly familiar.

The “modern email” service has been in super stealth mode for several months under the codename NewMail. With its formal launch as an open-to-the-public preview, the service gets a new name: Outlook.com. I’ve been using the NewMail beta for a week now and can share some first impressions here. Outlook, of course, is the serious, business-focused mail client included with Office. Microsoft used the brand with Outlook Express, its lightweight email client in Windows XP, but dumped the name with the launch of Windows Vista in 2006. Restoring the Outlook name to Microsoft’s consumer email service accomplishes two goals. First, it dumps the Hotmail brand, which is tarnished beyond redemption, especially among technically sophisticated users who have embraced Google’s Gmail as the default standard for webmail. More importantly, it replaces the Hotmail domain with a fresh top-level domain that’s serious enough for business use. (If you have an existing Hotmail.com or Live.com address, you can continue to use it with the new Outlook interface. But new addresses in the Outlook.com domain are up for grabs. if you have a common name, I recommend that you get yourself over to Outlook.com now to claim your preferred email address while it’s still available.) The Outlook.com preview will run alongside Hotmail for now, but when the preview ends, this will be the replacement for all Hotmail and Live Mail users. With Outlook.com, Microsoft is taking dead aim at Gmail, positioning Google’s flagship service as the old and tired player that is ready for retirement. Gmail, they point out, is eight years old, and its interface and feature set aren’t exactly modern. It doesn’t play well with any social media except its own, it handles attachments in a stodgy and traditional way, and it’s not particularly elegant when it comes to managing the deluge of email we all have to deal with every day. So what’s new about NewMail—sorry, Outlook.com? And why would anyone consider switching from Gmail? The most obvious change in the web interface, of course, is the overall design, which gets the full Metro treatment.

That three-pane layout follows the familiar Outlook standard, but the typography is definitely new. It’s clean and crisp with no wasted ornamentation or clutter. It should come as no surprise that the default organization is optimized for use on touch-enabled devices. A pane on the right shows different content, depending on the context. If you’re communicating with a friend of colleague who’s in your address book or connected via a social-media service, you’ll see updates about that person on the right side, with the option to chat with them (via Messenger or Facebook chat) in that pane. In a demo, Microsoft showed off Skype integration and said it will be coming later in the preview. If you’ve selected no message, the right pane might show ads, which appear in Metro style boxes with text–an image preview appears if you hover over the ad. As part of its positioning against Google, Microsoft has taken pains to note that your messages aren’t scanned to provide context-sensitive ads, as they are with Gmail. This is a pure HTML interface, which means the functionality is consistent across different browsers and on alternative platforms. I tested NewMail on a Mac using Safari and Chrome and in both Firefox and Chrome on several Windows PCs. Everything worked as expected. I also tested the web-based interface in mobile Safari on an iPad, where it also displayed perfectly (after switching from the default mobile layout). On mobile devices, you’ll be able to use native apps. An app for iOS devices should be available immediately. Microsoft promises an Android app “soon” that will enable Exchange ActiveSync support for older Android versions. A command bar at the top of the page provides access to commands as needed. If a command isn’t available in the current context, it’s not visible on the screen.

The preview pane (a feature that’s still experimental in Gmail even after eight years) lets you read and reply to messages without leaving the main screen. Action icons that appear when you move the mouse over an item in the message list let you file, delete, or flag the message with a single click or tap.

The new Outlook has some impressive mail management smarts built in. It automatically recognizes newsletters and other recurring types of mail. A Schedule cleanup option in the message header (also available on the command bar), lets you create rules on the fly that automatically delete or file similar messages to reduce clutter. You can specify, for example, that you want to keep only the most recent message from a “daily deals” site. You can also define how many messages you want to keep from a particular sender or automatically delete/file newsletters after a set number of days.

For newsletters that don’t contain an obvious unsubscribe link, the new Outlook adds a universal unsubscribe feature at the bottom of the message. When you select this option the web service sends an unsubscribe request on your behalf and creates a message-blocking rule. One huge differentiator between old-school webmail services like Gmail is the new Unified Address Book in Outlook.com. It takes a page from Microsoft’s People hubs in Windows 8 and the Windows Phone platform to pull together your traditional address book—where you manage names and details—and combine it with social media services of which you’re a member.

The advantage, of course, is that you always have the most up-to-date contact information for friends and colleagues, assuming they update their profiles. The new Outlook does a pretty good job of combining records. If you have contacts that appear in multiple locations, you can manually link or unlink those records as needed. Supported services include anything you can link to your Microsoft account, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Flickr. You can import contacts from Google and Facebook if you want to keep them locally. In terms of creating and sending photos and file attachments, the new Outlook integrates exceptionally well with SkyDrive, so that you can email large attachments and photo albums, storing them on SkyDrive with well-integrated links that the recipient can access with a click. The spec sheet says single attachments can be up to 300 MB in size. If they’re stored on SkyDrive, you don’t have to worry about the message being rejected by the recipient’s mail service. And of course, the service incorporates all of the Office Web Apps, which makes the process of sharing Word documents, PowerPoint slide decks, and Excel workbooks much more seamless. On the back end, the interface for managing an email account is cleaner. You can still create aliases that you use for sites and contacts where you don’t want to share your real address. And if you just want to experiment with the new service, you can redirect your Gmail messages temporarily to the new account or sign in with an existing Hotmail or Live address. (I’ve had my Gmail account redirected to Hotmail for a year without problems.)

To View Full Article Click Here

10 Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts You Need to Remember! 

Takeaway: There are 100+ keyboard shortcuts available for Microsoft Windows 8, but there are several you’ll want to remember because you’ll use them often.

In April 2012, Greg Shultz created a free cheat sheet of 100 Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts. That download contained just about every keyboard shortcut you could imagine. Those shortcuts are still valid of course, but if you are like me you can only remember a few Windows 8 shortcuts at a time, so you want to remember the ones that will be most useful.

So, while I highly recommend that you take advantage of the free PDF download listing of 100 Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts, I also recommend that you commit the following 10 Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts to memory, because you are going to need to access these features often and, for efficiency’s sake, it’s best to have them at the ready.

Windows 8 Specific Keyboard Shortcuts

Keystroke	Function
	Switch between Metro Start screen and the last accessed application
+ C	Access the charms bar
+ Tab	Access the Metro Taskbar
+ I	Access the Settings charm
+ K	Access the Devices charm
+ Q	Access the Apps Search screen
+ F	Access the Files Search screen
+ W	Access the Settings Search screen
+ X	Access the Windows Tools Menu
+ E	Open Computer

To View Full Article Click Here