Archive for category Email
How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 3
Posted by admin in Company & Product Profiles, Downloads, Email, File and Data Sharing, Free Stuff, home, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity, Security, Spam, Technology & Gadgets, tips, Tools, Tricks & Hacks, Web on June 3, 2010
In “How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 1“, we established that Windows PCs are often targeted because of their large market share and that the brand of your computer makes no difference because viruses, spyware and malware occur at the software level.
In “How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 2“, we considered browsing and clicking habits that can be harmful for your computer and your privacy.
Let’s look at two different types of software that can help protect your computer.
Internet Security Suite
There are some tools available that can help secure your Windows PC as well. A question that is often asked of me is, “Which antivirus software is the best?“. My answer is always, “I can recommend a certain product, but you need to know that no security software is bulletproof. They will all let some things get through.”
It’s important to understand that antivirus software offers only a certain type of protection. So if you go to download one of the free anti-virus software packages (AVG, Avast!, and Avira are all popular), they will offer anti-virus only protection. In order to get a quality level of comprehensive protection from a single piece of software, you’ll need to pay for it.
PC Magazine has a good run-down of the best software for 2010 here. They rate Norton and McAfee above the rest of the suites in this particular review. On more than one occasion, however, I have had major software issues with both McAfee and Norton, so I typically recommend another software package.
In my experience, Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 offers the best value, features and pricing. I use this software with many of my clients and have had good results without inhibiting the computer’s performance. It’s around $80, which covers three computers for a full year. Contact me to get this software installed on your computer.
Consistent Environment Software
Wouldn’t it be great if your computer was exactly the same every time you turned it on? One software package makes that happen.
Windows Steady State, developed by Microsoft allows a computer’s administrator to configure other users for a consistent environment on every login. It’s free and compatible with Windows XP and Vista (sorry, Windows 7 users!).
Basically, here’s how it works: a user can login, browse the internet, download files and even adjust settings just like usual. Then when they log out, all the settings revert back to the way they were before the person logged in. This software is very useful on a computer that a family with children may use, or in my case, a computer lab with multiple users.
Other helpful features of this software are timed logouts, software restrictions, and user permissions. If these sounds fancy, I assure you that Windows Steady State makes it very easy to understand and adjust these settings.
With a little common sense and the right software, your Windows PC should operate smoothly without much effort on the part of the user. It may not be bulletproof, but the overall experience will be better than if no protection or safeguards were put in place.
There is one option still to consider when using a PC. We’ll take a look at that in Part 4.
How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 2
Posted by admin in Downloads, Email, File and Data Sharing, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity, Security, Technology & Gadgets, Timesavers, tips, Tricks & Hacks, Web on June 2, 2010
In “How to Secure Your Windows PC – Part 1“, we established that Windows PCs are often targeted because of their large market share and that the brand of your computer makes no difference because viruses, spyware and malware occur at the software level.
To protect your Windows computer, the first and best rule of protection is to use your head and be pro-active in your browsing and clicking habits. This typically means two things:
- Only visit websites that you know can be trusted
- Use caution when clicking on links in e-mail that are unsolicited
Let’s look a little closer at #1:
How do you know which websites can be trusted? There is a difficult tension here – if you visit only the sites you already know, there are many useful and informational websites out there that you will miss in an effort to be cautiuos. But, if you go out willy-nilly and click on every site that comes up in the search results, your computer will get infected with malicious software sooner or later.
So the answer lies somewhere in between. More experienced users can take a little more liberty in clicking on unknown sites, but naive or less experienced users will need to be more careful when visiting unknown websites.
The truth is that malicious websites will do their best to look like a legitimate, reputable website. But these same sites will do damage to your computer that can be difficult to recover from.
Let’s look a little closer at #2:
E-mail is also a popular way to direct people to websites that are harmful not only to your computer, but to your privacy. If you get an e-mail from a financial institution, never click on the link in the e-mail. Instead, go to your browser to access the institution’s site directly.
It is very possible that the legitimate-looking e-mail you just received will direct you to a “phishing” site that will extract your login information and allow someone else to access your accounts and information.
In Part 3, we’ll consider two types of software that can help protect your computer from viruses and spyware.
Zapproved Helps Your Group Make Better Decisions
Posted by admin in Company & Product Profiles, Email, File and Data Sharing, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity, Simplicity, Technology & Gadgets, Timesavers, tips, Tools, Tricks & Hacks, Web, Web Applications on February 23, 2010
Does your decision-making process look like the one on the left or the one on the right?
Image from Zapproved.com
The decision-making process quickly and easily becomes complicated and convoluted with dozens of e-mails flying in and out of mailboxes. Zapproved.com helps your group streamline the decision-making process and keep the feedback all in one place.
To use Zapproved, you can begin by simply creating a proposal, or by signing up for a free account. The free account allows users to send 5 proposals/month; each proposal is kept for 30 days. Paid accounts start at $12/month for unlimited proposals and storage retention.
Those who serve on committees or work with groups often to make decisions will find Zapproved a simple and user-friendly tool to facilitate discussion and decision-making.
How to Open Those Pesky .docx Files
Posted by admin in Email, File and Data Sharing, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity, Technology & Gadgets, Timesavers, tips, Tools, Tricks & Hacks, Web Applications on February 12, 2010
I’ve had more than a couple of people e-mail to ask how they can open these .docx files. The .docx format was introduced by Microsoft beginning with Office version 2007 (that’s the version with the ribbon, rather than the toolbar; more info here).
So, the .docx files don’t open easily in versions of Microsoft Office prior to 2007. Here’s one fix: Microsoft has released an update that converts the .docx (and .pptx and .xlsx) files for use on earlier software.
There is another fix, however. I am a proponent of free open source software (FOSS). The OpenOffice.org suite is a free office suite that includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings. OpenOffice.org will open, edit and save the .docx (along with .pptx and .xlsx) files without even blinking. Read more about OpenOffice here.
Exciting News from Allyte
There is some news that I’d like to share with you -
- I have opened an office just off Cedar Bluff in west Knoxville. The new office space allows me to be more accessible to customers. The new space is located at 9040 Executive Park Drive, Suite 263, Knoxville, TN 37923 [click for a map].
- Allyte Workshops for Non-Geeks are now available. Click here to see the full list of upcoming workshops. I’d love to hear your ideas for other workshops, too!
- For useful tips and resources, the Allyte Blog is a great resource. It’s updated regularly with tech information for non-geeks. You can also sign up for an e-mail so you can get these tips delivered to your inbox.
- Allyte is now listed on Yelp, the wildly popular web resource for local business reviews. The reviews for Allyte are sparse, so I’d love to have you write a review for Allyte on Yelp. To write a review, just go to http://yelp.com, sign up for an account and do a search for “Allyte“. Click on the red “Write a Review” button and follow the instructions.
- Can we send you some cash? I love referrals! Word-of-mouth advertising is the single best way I’ve found to grow my business. So, for the month of February, if you send me a referral that turns into a paying customer, I’ll send you a check $10!
Keeping Up with the To-Dos
Posted by admin in Email, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity on January 30, 2010
How do you keep up with your to-do list? Is it on paper? In your email account? As long as your system works, it’s a good one.
I have used a combination of tools to help me keep my to-do list in order. Most of the time it works pretty well.
Between visual cues (items left on the desk or by the door to remind me), items in my GMail Inbox (I send emails to myself a lot), and an online to-do list for repeating tasks, my bases are pretty well covered.
As for the online tools, I have found a couple of websites to be especially useful. For the past year, I’ve been a user of RememberTheMilk. It’s a versatile site that allows the user to organize their to-do lists in a number of ways. The free version of the site is feature packed, but if you want any integration with a smartphone (I’m on an iPhone, myself), you’ll have to annie-up for the Pro version, at the tune of $25/year.
When my RememberTheMilk account came up for renewal this year, I chose to let it expire and go looking for another tool with similar features. A quick post on Twitter yielded some great feedback. Thanks to Jason Heydasch, I learned about Toodledo.
The free version of Toodledo has as many (probably even more) features than RememberTheMilk’s Pro version. The Toodledo iPhone app is only $2.99, a considerable amount less than the yearly fees at RememberTheMilk.
One of the most useful features of Toodledo is the ability to seperate tasks by context. I work out of at least two different offices during any given week, so this feature makes it easy for me to see only the tasks that are relevant to my focus at the time.
At first glance the interface of Toodledo might seem overwhelming and slightly rugged. But take a few minutes to look over the introduction and explanation of features. I quickly picked up the interface after I understood a little more about how it worked. It’s actually quite intuitive, highly customizable and versatile.
In my opinion, Toodledo is one of the best to-do management applications available, with a feature set that will work for most anyone, smartphone integration at a reasonable cost, and lots of plugins and widgets to help you keep track wherever you are online.
Top 10 Outlook Boosters [via Lifehacker]
Posted by admin in Email, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity on January 26, 2010
I’m a dedicated GMail user myself, but many of my clients use Outlook just as dedicated-ly as I use GMail. Lifehacker came out with this list of the Top 10 Outlook Boosters a while back, but it’s worth looking at again. Here are a couple of the handiest tools in the list:
# 10 – Never Forget Attachments. GMail has a labs tool available for this same task. It’s saved me a little time on more than 1 occasion!
# 6 – Kill your duplicate contacts. How great is it to get rid of the redundant redundancy?
# 1 – Sync Outlook with nearly any app/device/calendar. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all get along so well?
Here’s the link to the entire post of the Top 10 Outlook Boosters.
DropSend Allows You to Send Large Files Easily
Posted by admin in Email, Free Stuff, how to, Instruction, Internet, productivity on January 21, 2010
Have you ever tried to send a large file over e-mail? When I say “large”, I mean anything over 5 megabytes, roughly the size of 5 pictures. If you use Outlook, chances are your e-mail got stuck in the Outbox, waiting for someone in internet la-la-land t
o magically sweep it away and no obvious way to remove it from the Outbox. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, check this to see what I mean.
If you’re not an Outlook user like me (I’m a GMail addict), you know it can take forever to upload a large file to your e-mail, if your e-mail provider will allow it at all. There are often attachment size limits prescribed by e-mail service providers, and for good reason.
DropSend is one option for sending those large files. It works quite simply:
- Go to DropSend.com.
- Click “Browse” and find the file you want to send on your computer.
- Type in the address of the person you’re sending the file to, then type in your e-mail address below that.
- Hit “Send File”. Then follow the steps to finish setting up your account. Dropsend will give you some options, most of which are optional.
- The person you’re sending the file to will receive an e-mail with a link to click on and download the file.
DropSend is a straight-forward way to send a large file to anyone with an e-mail address. It takes only a minute to do and doesn’t bog down your entire e-mail program or provider while uploading a file.
Joomla! Article Manager
Posted by admin in Email, Internet, joomla, productivity on January 17, 2010
The Joomla! Article Manager is one of the key elements of the Joomla! Content Management System. Take a look at the video here to see the basics of how to use it.
Joomla Article Manager Overview from Brandon Moore on Vimeo.
Shrink Pic Resizes Images Automagically for Faster Uploads [Downloads]
Posted by Whitson Gordon in Compression, Downloads, Email, images, Photos, Timesavers on December 30, 2009
Windows only: Image resizing tools are a dime a dozen, but free utility Shrink Pic is actually an extremely clever original: Instead of requiring manual processing, it runs in the background and automatically resizes images whenever you attach or upload them.
A perfect tool for frequent Facebook uploaders, for example, Shrink Pic works with a number of applications (most browsers, Outlook, Thunderbird, Skype, and MSN Messenger, to name just a few) to monitor when you upload, attach, or send pictures via IM. When you do, it automatically resizes the images in the background based on user-defined settings, then uploads the smaller image (so you don’t have to wait several minutes for an upload to complete just to have it severely compressed at its destination anyway). It can even resize multiple photos in the same upload. The speed at which it resizes and the quality of the compression are nothing to sneeze at, either.
Shrink Pic saves the resized images in a temporary directory, so your originals are never touched—just copied. You can use any kind of compression level you want, as well as choose from 5 different photo types to check for. If you want to disable it, all you need to do is uncheck an option in your system tray—and re-enabling it is just as easy. You can even install a portable version to a USB drive, so you never have to resize images again—not even at other computers.
Shrink Pic is a free download, Windows only.
