Tag Archives: Microsoft Outlook

About 651 days ago Apps | E-mail | Managing Technology

Get Everything You Want Out of Gmail

Courtesy: Business Insider

Gmail is one of the most popular e-mail services, but besides the Inbox, Tags, and storage options, few users know of the plethora of customization options and additional tools to make your Gmail into the ultimate business e-mail platform. READ MORE »

About 653 days ago Business Software | E-mail | Internet and Online Business

Gmail Develops Three-Pane View

Screen-Shot-2011-08-04-at-23.03.14-500x366

Gmail has introduced a preview pane feature that allows users to read emails without opening them. The setting gives the option of choosing between “previews” and “list views.” Users can modify the preview pane to appear either horizontally or vertically adjacent to their lists of emails. READ MORE »

About 869 days ago Tools on Managing Technology

Expert Corner: Remote Access on a Budget

I work in one town but our main office is in another town. I had to figure out how to make sure our employees can use the software we use. Here is what I do to make it all work. We manage about 3,000 clients and have three offices 45 miles from each other, along with a number of our employees who work from home one or more days a week. We don’t have server farms or a bona fide IT department. Other than a fast internet connection, a Netgear gigabit router and a Cisco switch, we use the cloud and other free tools to manage our systems because we live on a budget.  I am a sales person, first and foremost. If I’m not selling, we’re not making money. I don’t have time to spend on the road outside of client meetings and sales presentations.  The question has always been, how can I get software and minor hardware issues handled without having to drive an hour just to fix a very simple problem? We started off by using a Web-based management system called AMS360 (www.ams360.com). Any associate can work with a client from their office or while the agency principal is lounging by the pool in Fort Myers Beach. This has completely changed the way we do business. We got rid of the file cabinets and now have all documents, client notes, and expenses for future client contacts in one place. In the millisecond world we live in, clients believe that quotes and changes need to be handled within the minute, not the hour. Because of this access, I am able to complete tasks from the client’s office and provide them with a confirmation email before ever leaving the meeting.  As a management team we can review associate interactions with clients by reviewing activities created for each client in the management system. This allows us to change our methods or identify potential problems with the sales structure before it turns into a problem.  Tech support is another major issue. Over the years, I have had to deal with fixing simple issues over the phone, explaining something to an associate who doesn’t even know where to find the Windows control panel or how to set the properties on their multi-screen workstation.  One of my new favorite applications for doing tech support is called LogMeIn.com. I first install the LogMeIn client on every one of our remote machines. Then I can easily make any software change without leaving the office. If the computer boots up and has Internet access, I can control it.  I use the free version that allows me to see all computers, monitor computer use, and just about anything else except play sounds or transfer files. I have even used my laptop to show a presentation on a workstation connected to a projector within the same conference room. Transferring files between our offices was always a big question mark. It’s now a breeze. I found a free Web app called Dropbox. This is a form of online storage, but the idea is you can share files and folders with anyone who has a Dropbox account (such as our own employees). I simply install an app on my PC, then drag and drop files into folders within my Dropbox account for others to access.  I have created folders to share with the office staff and other colleagues. Each folder is shared only with a defined group or individual. I even placed the article I am writing now in my Dropbox for later review and retrieval. It replaces having to email a file — one that was probably too large for the 5MB email limit on the mail server and also does not give my colleagues access to the original source file.  Another area of irritation for us has to do with managing virus protection on remote computers. We use a product called Sunbelt Vipre (www.vipreantivirus.com). We can update virus definitions automatically or make changes to our remotely defined groups, such as sales staff, customer support workstations, laptops, and other groups I have created. It allows me to filter websites for content by keyword and monitor use without using an onsite firewall, which means less PC maintenance for me.  One of the best parts of Vipre is the ability to generate custom reports about everything from individual computer use to spyware or virus threats.  Our fourth area is the life blood of office communications: email. For that, we use a combination of Microsoft Outlook and Gmail.com. We do not have an Microsoft Exchange Server within our organization, so we use Gmail to control the flow of email to our smart phones.  Setting up our Charter hosted email to forward a copy of every email to our individual Gmail accounts saved us thousands of dollars since we would have spent that on an Microsoft Exchange server.  Basically, I send a copy to my laptop and one to my Gmail account. This syncs seamlessly with my BlackBerry Bold 9650. Outgoing email looks and feels like I am sitting at my desk when, in reality, I am probably powering through lunch and trying to catch up on the morning’s email.  I manage the email with the BlackBerry’s option to delete e-mail on the mailbox and on my phone. Ok, you are probably asking: why do that? Isn’t it better to save e-mails on the server? After a few months of deleting emails accidently from the phone and the mailbox, I found that I wanted copies to remain in Outlook on my laptop so I could add them to the management system with client notes and the files that just don’t work on a phone. So I didn’t want to keep e-mails on the server; I wanted to force myself to keep them. Let’s face it: software vendors go out of their way to integrate with Outlook. It’s true that I have to delete something twice, but Outlook routes email to folders easily to save them.   Time is money and I am not making money unless I am selling something. I don’t have the time to spend on the road when I can do most of my tech support from my own office. It just makes sense to utilize all the tools available to manage information and systems remotely.

About 1004 days ago Business Software

Incoming: Can You Save on E-mail Software?

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Web-hosted e-mail is gaining popularity but for some small and mid-sized businesses, it just won’t do. “Many companies, for technical, political, or cultural reasons will never want their e-mail hosted in the cloud,” says Alan Elliot, vice president of sales and marketing at Mirapoint Software, Inc. which provides an e-mail server solution. “E-mail is a commercial tool, so the company may want some users to remain behind the firewall at all times, or it may have to comply with stringent policies about how data is handled. The company may want to retain deeply detailed records, and it may want to be the first to know if there’s a problem.” For many companies, serving mail in-house means two things: Microsoft Outlook running on users’ desktops, and Microsoft Exchange Server running on the company’s server or servers. With Outlook the clear market leader in business e-mail, it may well be the right choice, especially if users are accustomed to it. And it may seem just as logical to support it with Exchange on the back end. But Microsoft Exchange Server is not your only option for supporting an in-house Outlook e-mail system, and it certainly isn’t the least expensive one.  “The big cost of running Exchange is almost always the people you need to maintain it,” explains Richi Jennings, an independent industry analyst and e-mail expert. “Good IT people who know about Exchange and can deal with it when all hell breaks loose are expensive. And with a few hundred users, you might easily need two full-time equivalents.” Instead, you may be able to tame costs by opting for one of several less-expensive e-mail server systems, while users continue using the Outlook they know and love. There are many systems that can support Outlook on your server. Here are three that are geared for the small and mid-sized business market: Gordano Messaging Suite When compared to the standard configuration for Microsoft Exchange Server, Gordano Messaging Suite licenses cost about $400 less for 25 users, and the savings increase exponentially as the user count rises, according to a price comparison provided by Gordano, which launched its first commercial e-mail product in 1995. There’s bigger savings on maintenance, though telephone support for users is not included in the license price. Gordano Messaging Suite can be, and often is, managed by non-technical staff at client companies. “It’s simple to install,” says John Stanners, advisor to Gordano and former managing director. “Our office record for installing it on a server was less than a minute, and then we were ready to start adding users.” In addition to supporting Outlook, Gordano has a webmail client that is hosted on an internal server and runs in a browser on users’ desktops either at the office or at home. That eliminates the hassle of maintaining Outlook on the desktop. “It was designed to look and function as much like Outlook as possible, and when you walk by people’s desks it’s difficult to tell who’s using Outlook and who’s using our webmail,” Stanners says. Ipswitch iMail iMail Server from Ipswitch offers 90 percent of the features Microsoft Exchange Server does, says Brad Senter, marketing manager for Ipswitch. The exception is unified communication functions: iMail Server, first launched in 1994, can’t do things like send voice messages to users’ inboxes. But the cost is significantly lower, with licensing costs of $34.95 for the iMail server, and $12.95 to $15.95 per user, depending on the number of users. Though iMail Server is installed in some very large companies, including one with more than 300,000 users, it was created specifically for small and mid-sized businesses, he says, which allowed the company to build a lower-cost product. “Twenty-five percent of our customer base is companies with fewer than 100 users. Typically, they have one IT person who’s responsible for everything. It works for them because our software is designed for administrators. It’s easier to learn and to maintain.” Mirapoint Mirapoint takes a different approach to in-house e-mail: Instead of providing software to run on your server, it ships an appliance with the e-mail software already hard-wired in (and, if desired, a second smaller appliance for archiving). “The box is fully integrated, so caring and feeding are minimal,” Elliot explains. “Once configured, it can truly be an ancillary responsibility for someone.” The appliance starts at $10,000 he says, with user licensing ranging from $50 a year to $10 a month, depending on desired features. “Mirapoint was approximately half the price of a Microsoft Exchange solution,” reports Dan Bailey, IS director of Norton Sound Health Corporation, a tribally-owned non-profit health care organization in Nome, Alaska that has been using Mirapoint for several years. “The other factor was the limitation of the IS staff. This is a small staff responsible for a large network and the manpower isn’t there to spend a lot of time maintaining Exchange.” Questions to ask If you’re thinking of supporting Outlook with a non-Exchange server, Jennings recommends reviewing several factors in addition to cost. “You should consider what the webmail experience is like because users may access the system from a computer in café or at a trade show. And what is the mobile interface like for someone using an iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android phone?” Companies considering Exchange alternatives should address these issues, he says, in addition to the one they always consider, which is how similar or dissimilar the experience is for users accustomed to Exchange. “That’s the number-one question everyone thinks about,” he says. He advises asking very specific questions about exactly which Exchange functions will and won’t work for employees using Outlook on alternative server software. “Often, the devil is in the details.”

About 1004 days ago E-mail

Incoming: Can You Save on E-mail Software?

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Web-hosted e-mail is gaining popularity but for some small and mid-sized businesses, it just won’t do. “Many companies, for technical, political, or cultural reasons will never want their e-mail hosted in the cloud,” says Alan Elliot, vice president of sales and marketing at Mirapoint Software, Inc. which provides an e-mail server solution. “E-mail is a commercial tool, so the company may want some users to remain behind the firewall at all times, or it may have to comply with stringent policies about how data is handled. The company may want to retain deeply detailed records, and it may want to be the first to know if there’s a problem.” For many companies, serving mail in-house means two things: Microsoft Outlook running on users’ desktops, and Microsoft Exchange Server running on the company’s server or servers. With Outlook the clear market leader in business e-mail, it may well be the right choice, especially if users are accustomed to it. And it may seem just as logical to support it with Exchange on the back end. But Microsoft Exchange Server is not your only option for supporting an in-house Outlook e-mail system, and it certainly isn’t the least expensive one.  “The big cost of running Exchange is almost always the people you need to maintain it,” explains Richi Jennings, an independent industry analyst and e-mail expert. “Good IT people who know about Exchange and can deal with it when all hell breaks loose are expensive. And with a few hundred users, you might easily need two full-time equivalents.” Instead, you may be able to tame costs by opting for one of several less-expensive e-mail server systems, while users continue using the Outlook they know and love. There are many systems that can support Outlook on your server. Here are three that are geared for the small and mid-sized business market: Gordano Messaging Suite When compared to the standard configuration for Microsoft Exchange Server, Gordano Messaging Suite licenses cost about $400 less for 25 users, and the savings increase exponentially as the user count rises, according to a price comparison provided by Gordano, which launched its first commercial e-mail product in 1995. There’s bigger savings on maintenance, though telephone support for users is not included in the license price. Gordano Messaging Suite can be, and often is, managed by non-technical staff at client companies. “It’s simple to install,” says John Stanners, advisor to Gordano and former managing director. “Our office record for installing it on a server was less than a minute, and then we were ready to start adding users.” In addition to supporting Outlook, Gordano has a webmail client that is hosted on an internal server and runs in a browser on users’ desktops either at the office or at home. That eliminates the hassle of maintaining Outlook on the desktop. “It was designed to look and function as much like Outlook as possible, and when you walk by people’s desks it’s difficult to tell who’s using Outlook and who’s using our webmail,” Stanners says. Ipswitch iMail iMail Server from Ipswitch offers 90 percent of the features Microsoft Exchange Server does, says Brad Senter, marketing manager for Ipswitch. The exception is unified communication functions: iMail Server, first launched in 1994, can’t do things like send voice messages to users’ inboxes. But the cost is significantly lower, with licensing costs of $34.95 for the iMail server, and $12.95 to $15.95 per user, depending on the number of users. Though iMail Server is installed in some very large companies, including one with more than 300,000 users, it was created specifically for small and mid-sized businesses, he says, which allowed the company to build a lower-cost product. “Twenty-five percent of our customer base is companies with fewer than 100 users. Typically, they have one IT person who’s responsible for everything. It works for them because our software is designed for administrators. It’s easier to learn and to maintain.” Mirapoint Mirapoint takes a different approach to in-house e-mail: Instead of providing software to run on your server, it ships an appliance with the e-mail software already hard-wired in (and, if desired, a second smaller appliance for archiving). “The box is fully integrated, so caring and feeding are minimal,” Elliot explains. “Once configured, it can truly be an ancillary responsibility for someone.” The appliance starts at $10,000 he says, with user licensing ranging from $50 a year to $10 a month, depending on desired features. “Mirapoint was approximately half the price of a Microsoft Exchange solution,” reports Dan Bailey, IS director of Norton Sound Health Corporation, a tribally-owned non-profit health care organization in Nome, Alaska that has been using Mirapoint for several years. “The other factor was the limitation of the IS staff. This is a small staff responsible for a large network and the manpower isn’t there to spend a lot of time maintaining Exchange.” Questions to ask If you’re thinking of supporting Outlook with a non-Exchange server, Jennings recommends reviewing several factors in addition to cost. “You should consider what the webmail experience is like because users may access the system from a computer in café or at a trade show. And what is the mobile interface like for someone using an iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android phone?” Companies considering Exchange alternatives should address these issues, he says, in addition to the one they always consider, which is how similar or dissimilar the experience is for users accustomed to Exchange. “That’s the number-one question everyone thinks about,” he says. He advises asking very specific questions about exactly which Exchange functions will and won’t work for employees using Outlook on alternative server software. “Often, the devil is in the details.”

About 1010 days ago Internet and Online Business

The New Small Business On-Ramp to Social CRM

Over the past 12-18 months, major customer relationship management (CRM) players like Salesforce.com, Sage, SAP and others have been adding “social” abilities to traditional CRM applications — like viewing social profile information from Twitter and Facebook.  Additionally, newer services such as BatchBook, BantamLive, and others are creating CRM applications on a social foundation aimed at the small and mid-sized business market.  And with every passing day, social technologies are merging with traditional CRM functionality, giving companies more efficient ways of transforming clicks into valuable customer relationships.  A little over two years ago I wrote about the Three A’s of Social CRM.  Back then most people were focused on social media, but not so much on its impact on customer relationship management tools and strategies.  Even a year ago when I compared traditional CRM with Social CRM the interest was pretty much limited to industry insiders.  That’s not the case today, as the topic of Social CRM has become the focus of many in business.  Having focused on CRM for almost two decades — as an application developer, early Salesforce.com certified implementation partner, and finally as an industry watcher — this may be the most important development I’ve seen.  I say this because technology has amplified the voice of the customer, and given them greater control over who they engage with, when they do, and how they do so.  This in turn is forcing those charged with engaging them to change their approach:  in order to connect with customers who Tweet to thousands of followers, watch videos on mobile phones, and form their own online communities.  This also is forcing CRM vendors to provide services that do more than just store customer information and track activities.  But there’s one company that looks to be creating a platform small businesses can use to turn a variety of online interactions into stronger customer relationships — and it’s not even a CRM company, in the traditional sense. Keeping with the AAA theme from a couple of years back, below are a few reasons why Google is becoming the onramp to Social CRM success for small and mid-sized businesses. Apps — Internal Even with Facebook hitting the 500 million member mark — with billions of interactions taking place weekly — the majority of people in business-to-business (B2B) organizations  I’ve come across say no more than 15-20 percent of their total interactions on Facebook are business related.  Conversely, about 80-90 percent of e-mail interactions these same folks have are business related, and with much higher frequency.  And in many cases, the e-mail exchanges are more intimate in nature, from a business perspective.  This may be because the conversations are more direct and focused, and the people engaged in the conversations are more focused on each other — not the overall community — during these interaction.  So even today, a large percentage of customer relationship building takes place in our inboxes. Just as Microsoft Outlook was (and still is) key to increasing CRM user adoption over the past decade, Gmail is looking to be that key in the Social Age. More small companies are using Google’s low-cost e-mail hosting services — making Gmail the fastest growing of the big online e-mail providers, closing in on 180 million accounts.  But the choice to use Gmail goes well beyond price.  Google has turned the inbox into a relationship-building platform enabling multiple points of contact, and increased opportunities for meaningful interactions. When you exchange e-mails with other Gmail users, Google can (based on your security settings) connect you with them if you both use Google Reader — giving you the ability to see what kind of information they are interested in, and start feeding them more of it.  And when you go to YouTube, Google lists the YouTube channels of those you interact with via Gmail at the top of the page — giving you a chance to subscribe to them.  So Google is building an interaction-based platform on the bedrock of Gmail.  And as you exchange emails, you can grow the relationship wider by engaging across apps like Reader and Youtube.  You can also deepen the engagement with real-time collaborative interactions via Google Docs, Sheets and Sites. Apps – External Not only has Google created a business interaction-based platform with their dizzying array of applications, but they’ve invited third-party application developers to extend that foundation through the Google Apps Marketplace.  And according to a recent post on the Official Google Apps blog, the top search term for installable apps in the marketplace is CRM. Of the thirteen CRM apps in the marketplace, five of them are under the Social CRM umbrella, including Gist, BatchBook, and BantamLive.  Vendors like Zoho and Tactile add more traditional CRM functionality to Google’s interaction platform.  These and a growing group of application developers will continue building the CRM functionality Google doesn’t build itself. Android While everyone has been captivated by the developments surrounding the iPhone4 release, worldwide sales of phones with Google’s Android operating system crossed over the five million unit mark, according to Gartner.  Google recently announced that 160,000 Android units get activated every day, and it expects Android to eventually be a $10 billion business. No doubt the same apps being used on Web browsers are also driving up Android activations, as people are able to work from wherever they need to.  But Android tablet devices haven’t even hit the market yet.  And with multiple vendors like Cisco, LG, and others committing to running Android on their upcoming tablets, Google will effectively be extending their business interaction platform to new areas.  Cisco’s tablet — The Cius — is a key piece in the company’s push to enable the social enterprise.  The device will be optimized for collaboration via video chat, Webex meetings, and conference calls.  So the device will be optimized for video interactions, while other vendors may optimize their devices for different kinds of interactions.  But the bottom line is Android will be extended to cover more ground, while still offering Apps people can run across vendor-specific tablet devices. Analytics Google Analytics has become of staple of many businesses to track their Web traffic.  And Google’s ability to turn text into context to serve up ads when we do searches and read emails has driven targeted traffic via Google Adwords.  And with this ability to analyze text for ads, Google should also be able to analyze text for sentiment.  Just imagine if Google (or a third party developer) could analyze the interactions we’ve had with someone across all the Google channels we engage them over so we can know what’s on their mind, and also what is their state of mind — and how they feel about us.  Or even being able to take a group of people we communicate with on Google channels, say VP’s of marketing in the retail industry, to find out what those interactions can reveal.  This could lead to more targeted, efficient and meaningful interactions with those we’re trying to create relationships with — based on a business interaction lifecycle taking place across Google’s services. Social CRM is about meaningful interaction as well as information management.  And while business interactions are taking place all over, Google — with search, e-mail, Web traffic, and collaborations via Docs, Sheets, etc. — has created an inexpensive platform for building relationships with customers in the Social Age.  Through Apps (including third party apps), Android, and Analytics, Google is as much a Social CRM player as anyone else.  And for small businesses it may be the most important player. Brent Leary is a small-business technology analyst, adviser, and award-winning blogger. He is the co-author of Barack 2.0: Social Media Lessons for Small Business. His blog can be found at http://brentleary.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/brentleary .

About 1634 days ago PCs, Laptops, and Notebooks

Santa Baby, Slip These Gadgets under the Tree

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Santa baby, slip an iTouch under the tree, for me Been an awful tough year, Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight. This holiday season, the little somethings that small business owners are asking Santa to slip under the tree include lightweight notebook computers, next-generation smart phones, HD cameras, and more. With the economy in the doldrums, there’s not a whole lot to celebrate this year and not a whole lot of IT money left to celebrate with. But small business owners who’ve managed to squirrel away a little of their annual computing budget to spend on themselves or their employees before Dec. 31 have a sleigh full of electronic devices to choose from. According to a very informal poll of several dozen small business owners, here are some of the most popular items on their holiday wish lists: Little laptops Sallie Goetsch, a podcast producer at The Podcast Asylum in California, wants a UMPC — an ultra-mobile PC — the latest in lightweight computing. Also known as a tablet PC, netbook or subnotebook, the devices run 13” or smaller, weigh just a couple pounds, have touch screens and/or QWERTY keyboards and come with built ins like GPS and Wi-Fi and a variety of options. Goetsch wants something to take to conferences and events and prefers a UMPC over a smart phone. “I never did learn how to type with my thumbs,” she says. “I’m trying to decide which one, the new HP? The EEE?” Joe Pulizzi, owner of Z Squared Media, a Cleveland, Ohio, content marketing firm and founder of the Junta42 content marketing blog network, wants a mini laptop too. Pulizzi has a 17” Toshiba laptop in his home office, but it’s too big for the road. “Sometimes small is better,” he says. Pulizzi has his eyeona Toshiba Portege with a 12.1” display, built-in fingerprint reader, webcam, digital card reader, and 4 USB ports. Smartphones Linda Musgrove, owner of an Aventura, Fla., trade show consulting firm called Trade Show Teacher, already has a smartphone. But that hasn’t stopped her from lusting after the HTC Touch Pro, Sprint’s Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone with a slide-out QWERTY keypad, touch screen, expandable memory, 3.2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth support. The device will do double duty, managing Musgrove’s business and “my crazy family,” she says. Nancy White, owner of Custom Interface, a Bingen, Wash., custom electronics manufacturer, treated herself to an AT&T Tilt smartphone as an early Christmas present. It hasn’t been pure love at first sight — “It takes three screens to get to speed dial” — but she does love the fact that it comes loaded with Microsoft Outlook, “so the interface with my work desktop is fantastic,” she says. Cameras and gadgets When it comes to gadgets, former newspaper photographer Jay Bryant has a soft spot for cameras. This holiday, Bryant, now business development vice president at Live World, a San Jose, Calif., social networking company, has his eye on the Kodak Zi6 Flip Cam in HD. The palm-sized device has a 2.4” screen and weighs 3.8 ounces and has built-in USB port and editing software. “I’m going to try my hand at video blogging,” Bryant says. “And I’m going to start recording some of my presentations to review them afterward to see how I can do better,” Bryant says. Plus, at a suggested retail price of $180, “it’s cheap,” he says. After Andre Preoteasa, IT director at Castle Brands got himself an Apple iPod Touch, he was the most popular guy at the New York City fine spirits distributor. “Everyone in the office is asking to use it. Everybody wants one,” Preoteasa says. “It’s literally a computer in your pocket, and a very posh one.” Reviewers have dubbed the second-generation iPod Touch the iPhone’s baby brother, with many of the same features — music and video player, Safari Web browser, email, iTunes store, etc. — minus the ability to make cell phone calls. Prices run $270 to $400 for models with 8, 16 or 32 GB flash memory. Travis Isaacson, senior director of organizational development at Access Development, a Salt Lake City, affinity marketing business, doesn’t want anything that fancy, just an iPod Classic with 120 GB of memory instead of the old 80 GB model he has now so he can squeeze in more of the business books he downloads from Audible.com. Nov Omana, managing principal at Collective HR Solutions, a San Mateo, Calif. HR industry consultant, doesn’t like it when people sitting next to him at Starbucks or on an airplane peek at his laptop screen. So this holiday his wish list includes a pair of MyVu Shades, eyewear that looks like regular sunglasses but blocks out whatever is showing on a laptop or iPod screen for everyone except the person wearing them. The $199 device, which comes with built-in earbuds, is primarily sold as a way to watch videos in private but Omana thinks it has big potential with business travelers. “The next generation may allow us to just ‘see’ each other in a virtual world or over the net no matter where we are,” he says. John Klebes, business development program manager at Sig Sauer, the Exeter, N.H. gun maker, has his eye on the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen, a $200 digital pen with built in microphone, speaker, display screen and tiny camera. The Smartpen can record notes in written and audio form simultaneously when used with special “digital paper” embedded with microdots. “It sounds like a very useful tool and I wouldn’t turn down one for Christmas,” Klebes says.

About 1664 days ago Data Security

Secure Your PCs for Free

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Given the state of the economy, many small and mid-sized businesses and small office, home office (SOHO) workers might be tempted to trim essential services, such as anti-virus and anti-spyware protection, firewall, spam detection, and offsite back-up. The question isn’t whether or not you can afford security software — rather, it’s can you afford not to? Don’t fret, there is an alternative. Free software exists Rather than putting your company’s data at risk by not doing anything at all, consider a handful of downloadable tools that offer protection for your PC, without costing your company a dime. “Free is the best four-letter word in the English language” for small and mid-sized businesses, says Steve Hilton, vice president for small and mid-sized business and enterprise research at the Boston, Mass.-based Yankee Group. “Try out free solutions and talk with someone who’s already used the product to avoid any gotchas.” What “gotchas,” you ask? Hilton says free software is free for a reason. “The vendor might support the free product, hoping you’ll upgrade to the pay-version, or some vendors rely on ad-sponsored revenues to support free products.” But in some cases the software might conflict with your operating systems or applications on your PC, adds Hilton. “Therefore, the best idea is to work with your tech advisor or IT department to make sure you won’t have any unfortunate surprises, because free software often doesn’t come with vendor-provided tech support.” Not everyone believes these free options are a good idea for your business. “While most of these tools, such as free anti-malware, are very good for consumers I don’t think they are a good idea” for businesses, says Peter Firstbrook, research director for information, security and privacy at Gartner, a Stamford, Conn.- headquartered technology market research firm. “They key requirement for business is centralized management and reporting and that is absent from these tools,” explains Firstbrook, and “in some solutions commercial use is specifically prohibited by the license agreement.” Recommended freebies  Anti-virus software is important to safeguard your PC from the latest threats out there in cyberspace, which usually make their way into your e-mail inbox. Without anti-virus detection, all it takes is for you or an employee to click on an attachment, such as an .exe file, causing an immediate infection and perhaps propagating itself through your contacts list (and yes, your clients and customers will just love that). On a related note, spyware refers to other “malware” (malicious software) that can do everything from slow down your PC and spy on your Internet surfing behavior to causing inappropriate pop-up ads and hijacking your browser’s home page or toolbar. Some of the anti-virus software programs experts recommend include the award-winning AVG Free and Avast!, while competent anti-spyware tools include Windows Defender and Ad-Aware 2008 Free. On a related note, make sure you have a powerful firewall and intrusion detection to protect your PC from predators, such as Personal Firewall by Sunbelt or Comodo Firewall. Online storage Backing up important files is critical — but saving them to a local external hard drive, USB thumb-stick, or recordable DVD means they’re still vulnerable to theft, fire, or flood. It’s no wonder, then, why many companies prefer to upload data to a secure offsite location. An added advantage to these online back-up and storage solutions is the ability to access those files anywhere in the world you’ve got an Internet connection. While some services let you back a couple of gigabytes for free, such as MozyHome, Microsoft gives you up to 5GB of free storage per month with its Windows Live SkyDrive. All that’s required to use this password-protected virtual drive is a Windows Live I.D. (a Hotmail e-mail address will do). And if you need to send large files to someone — such as sending a huge PDF to a coworker or client — you can set up a separate folder on Windows Live SkyDrive only for shared files. Spam protection Spam, or unsolicited junk mail, isn’t just a productivity drain as you and your employees can spend hours deleting these unwanted messages per week, but often they contain viruses, spyware, or phishing attempts that try to lure you to authentic-looking websites to steal your identity for financial gain. If you use Microsoft Outlook, however, a free plug-in program called SPAMfighter dramatically reduces the amount of junk mail you get by segregating suspicious messages and dropping it into a folder. It catches quite a bit (with few “false positives,” meaning it thinks mail is spam when it’s not) and doesn’t slow down your PC. A word of warning: while free, SPAMfighter adds a “signature” to the end of your outgoing e-mails that is meant to spread the word about the software (and no, you can’t remove it), plus the company hopes you’ll upgrade to the paid version with additional bells and whistles.

About 1664 days ago Spyware and Malware

Secure Your PCs for Free

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Given the state of the economy, many small and mid-sized businesses and small office, home office (SOHO) workers might be tempted to trim essential services, such as anti-virus and anti-spyware protection, firewall, spam detection, and offsite back-up. The question isn’t whether or not you can afford security software — rather, it’s can you afford not to? Don’t fret, there is an alternative. Free software exists Rather than putting your company’s data at risk by not doing anything at all, consider a handful of downloadable tools that offer protection for your PC, without costing your company a dime. “Free is the best four-letter word in the English language” for small and mid-sized businesses, says Steve Hilton, vice president for small and mid-sized business and enterprise research at the Boston, Mass.-based Yankee Group. “Try out free solutions and talk with someone who’s already used the product to avoid any gotchas.” What “gotchas,” you ask? Hilton says free software is free for a reason. “The vendor might support the free product, hoping you’ll upgrade to the pay-version, or some vendors rely on ad-sponsored revenues to support free products.” But in some cases the software might conflict with your operating systems or applications on your PC, adds Hilton. “Therefore, the best idea is to work with your tech advisor or IT department to make sure you won’t have any unfortunate surprises, because free software often doesn’t come with vendor-provided tech support.” Not everyone believes these free options are a good idea for your business. “While most of these tools, such as free anti-malware, are very good for consumers I don’t think they are a good idea” for businesses, says Peter Firstbrook, research director for information, security and privacy at Gartner, a Stamford, Conn.- headquartered technology market research firm. “They key requirement for business is centralized management and reporting and that is absent from these tools,” explains Firstbrook, and “in some solutions commercial use is specifically prohibited by the license agreement.” Recommended freebies  Anti-virus software is important to safeguard your PC from the latest threats out there in cyberspace, which usually make their way into your e-mail inbox. Without anti-virus detection, all it takes is for you or an employee to click on an attachment, such as an .exe file, causing an immediate infection and perhaps propagating itself through your contacts list (and yes, your clients and customers will just love that). On a related note, spyware refers to other “malware” (malicious software) that can do everything from slow down your PC and spy on your Internet surfing behavior to causing inappropriate pop-up ads and hijacking your browser’s home page or toolbar. Some of the anti-virus software programs experts recommend include the award-winning AVG Free and Avast!, while competent anti-spyware tools include Windows Defender and Ad-Aware 2008 Free. On a related note, make sure you have a powerful firewall and intrusion detection to protect your PC from predators, such as Personal Firewall by Sunbelt or Comodo Firewall. Online storage Backing up important files is critical — but saving them to a local external hard drive, USB thumb-stick, or recordable DVD means they’re still vulnerable to theft, fire, or flood. It’s no wonder, then, why many companies prefer to upload data to a secure offsite location. An added advantage to these online back-up and storage solutions is the ability to access those files anywhere in the world you’ve got an Internet connection. While some services let you back a couple of gigabytes for free, such as MozyHome, Microsoft gives you up to 5GB of free storage per month with its Windows Live SkyDrive. All that’s required to use this password-protected virtual drive is a Windows Live I.D. (a Hotmail e-mail address will do). And if you need to send large files to someone — such as sending a huge PDF to a coworker or client — you can set up a separate folder on Windows Live SkyDrive only for shared files. Spam protection Spam, or unsolicited junk mail, isn’t just a productivity drain as you and your employees can spend hours deleting these unwanted messages per week, but often they contain viruses, spyware, or phishing attempts that try to lure you to authentic-looking websites to steal your identity for financial gain. If you use Microsoft Outlook, however, a free plug-in program called SPAMfighter dramatically reduces the amount of junk mail you get by segregating suspicious messages and dropping it into a folder. It catches quite a bit (with few “false positives,” meaning it thinks mail is spam when it’s not) and doesn’t slow down your PC. A word of warning: while free, SPAMfighter adds a “signature” to the end of your outgoing e-mails that is meant to spread the word about the software (and no, you can’t remove it), plus the company hopes you’ll upgrade to the paid version with additional bells and whistles.

About 1787 days ago Computer Security

World of Web Browsers: Are Alternatives Safer?

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Some Microsoft users have found recently that upgrading to the software maker’s latest version of its popular Web browser Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) can be an extremely frustrating experience. In fact, one of the most common complaints is that that the product has features that “nag” the user. “IE7 works, but it has way too much in the way of security notifications that aren’t actually doing anything but bugging the user,” says Peri Naccarato, computer technician and owner of The Computer Guys in Saugerties, N.Y.  “In my opinion Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is far better at protecting you, and doesn’t annoy with the kind of constant pop-ups IE does.” For more than the last decade, Microsoft has had a death grip on the browser market, with more than 85 percent of computer owners using IE. In fact, in 2000, as part of a federal court’s finding that Microsoft used monopolistic practices to maintain a hold over the computer operating system software market, the court also found the software giant attempted to monopolize the Web browser market. But times have changed. A variety of new browsers are giving business Web users new choices in Web browsing. Many of these browsers put additional functionality into your browser, including e-mail, chat, photo sharing, and more. And despite the new security features in IE7, there are many who contend that the alternatives may provide higher levels of security — one reason, of course, being that they aren’t targeted by hackers as much as Microsoft’s market-dominant IE. “I’m a multiple browser user, depending on what I want to do,” says Michael Belfiore, tech writer and author of the book Rocketeers (Smithsonian Press, 2007). “The only thing I use IE for is watching Netflix Instant Viewing films, which requires IE.” Belfiore says that on a PC, he tends to use the Opera browser for large file downloads because it has BitTorrent, a file-sharing communications tool, built in. He also uses Firefox for research “because of the multiple search engines it has incorporated into the interface. On the Mac I use Safari, which is getting a lot of development from Apple right now.” History of the browser war The first widely used World Wide Web browser came along in 1992, in the form of Mosaic, the great-grandparent of many of today’s browsers, including Mozilla and all its derivatives. Mosaic, developed in the academic environment, was the first browser to actually implement images embedded in the text, rather than displaying them in a separate window. Some of the Mosaic programmers went on to develop the first commercial Web browser at a company called Netscape. The Netscape Navigator browser was the most popular browser until Microsoft started incorporating its own browser, IE, into it’s market-dominant Windows operating system software in the late 1990s. Since then, of course, Internet browsers have grown to become one of the most necessary tools for anyone using the Web, and if you use Web-based e-mail, possibly the only tool used. Despite being overshadowed by IE, alternative Web browsers are finally making it less a Microsoft-dominated world of browsers. While some are specific to certain computer operating systems, there are a few browsers that cross all boundaries. The primary alternatives to IE across all platforms are Mozilla Firefox and Opera, with Apple’s Safari this past year bringing its particular brand of browser to Windows as well as Macs. After Microsoft, Firefox appears to be the obvious leader, but Opera has been making some big strides recently. Opera has just formed a partnership with Haute Secure, a security vendor founded in 2006, to protect users from rogue sites known for drive-by malware and malicious links. This two-pronged approach takes browser security a step even further than Mozilla Firefox, which protect against malware but not malicious links. Haute Secure’s protection is incorporated into Opera’s version 9.5, currently available as a beta release. There are quite a few other choices in the world of browsers, and the differences can be a bit confusing. So if you’ve been tempted to switch your business off of IE but haven’t been too sure where to start, here’s a list of the most popular currently available mainstream browsers. Browser alternatives Mozilla Firefox was designed for simplicity, security, and extensibility, with hundreds of extensions available. Originally branched from Netscape Communicator, Mozilla Application Suite was an all-in-one software that included Web, e-mail, IRC chat, and HTML editor. Mozilla later developed each of these into separate individual applications. The Mozilla Thunderbird mail and news client is an alternative to Microsoft Outlook Express. The HTML editor became Nvu, a stand-alone website builder that’s growing a large following of its own, and the IRC chat feature became Chatzilla, a downloadable add-on to Firefox. All applications are open-source, and versions exist for Windows, Linux, and Mac. Features: Web, RSS headlines, e-mail and full RSS via Thunderbird, extensions for chat, customization, etc., skinnable, phishing filter. Opera is a full-fledged Internet suite with Web, e-mail, news (usenet and RSS) and chat, with a wealth of other features available. Recently, Opera added better security in its latest version 9.5 to protect users from malware and malicious links. Due to the fact that Opera runs leaner on less memory, it is often the best choice if you have older machine. Versions for Windows, Linux, and Mac. Features: Web, e-mail, RSS, chat, skinnable, phishing filter, widgets, BitTorrent. Apple Safari is designed for elegance and speed, and is now the default browser on the Mac. Starting with version 3 (currently in beta), Safari is also available for Windows. Features: Web, RSS. Mozilla Seamonkey is an all-in-one Internet suite that grew from the original Mozilla Application Suite, including browser, e-mail/newsgroups client, address book, and an HTML editor, with many of the features that have since made Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird popular. Essentially, Seamonkey can be considered the next generation of the Mozilla Application Suite. Versions for Windows, Linux, and Mac. Features: Web, e-mail, chat, HTML editor. Flock is a “social browser” built on a Firefox core that integrates with Web services for blogging, photo sharing, and bookmark sharing. Flock supports bookmarks sharing in del.icio.us, webmail integration with Gmail and Yahoo!, and integrates with photo services Flickr, Picasa, and Photobucket. Blogging services it supports include Blogger, TypePad, WordPress and many others, and also integrates with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Versions for Windows, Linux and Mac. Features: Web, blogging, photo sharing, social networks, favorites sharing, RSS reader, skinnable, compatible with many Firefox extensions In addition to Firefox and SeaMonkey, Mozilla’s “Gecko” engine is the basis for a number of platform-specific browsers, including K-Meleon for Windows, Camino for Macintosh, and Galeon and Epiphany for Linux.