Jump Lists are lists of recently opened items, such as files, folders, or websites, organized by the program that you used to open them. You can also pin favorites to a Jump List, so you can quickly get to the items that you use every day. Read more.

Need to quickly find out what day it would be 45 days from now without counting squares on a calendar? Want to know how many days until a holiday, birthday, meeting, or other special event? The built-in calculator in Windows 7 can answer these questions. Read more.

Who wants to find an extra hour of free time in their day, every day? Considering we’re all stressed out because there’s never enough time to get everything done, this is what I would call a “leading” question.

    So how can you do it? By looking at the seemingly innocent, time-sucking activities you are spending time on ever day and either automating them or speeding them to completion using technology. Can it really be that simple? It can, but you need to understand one critical factor first…

The “Latte” Factor

     Best-selling author David Bach coined this phrase in his book “The Automatic Millionaire.” The latte factor is based on the simple idea that all you need to do to become wealthy is take a hard look at the small things you spend your money on every day and see whether you could redirect that spending into savings.

     For example, a little $2 purchase made every day on common things like Starbucks (a latte), bottled water, fast food snacks, cigarettes, etc. REDIRECTED into an investment account earning 6% will become $10,199.30 in 10 years. If that’s true, why don’t MORE people do it? Because saving $2 a day seems so insignificant that people spend ALL their money on these things and then have nothing left over to invest.

5 Time-Saving Techie Tips
That Will Add An Hour Or MORE To Your Day

   So the question is, what are some small, time-saving technologies we can use to automate or speed up what we get done to save us that precious hour? Here are our 6 favorites:

1. Use an aggressive spam filter. Over 80% of the e-mails being sent daily are not-so-delicious spam. And if you’re like me, you’re getting dozens of these every day, which can easily add up to 5-10 minutes per day sifting, sorting through and deleting the spam from the e-mails you want.Plus, eliminating spam temptations from your STAFF will not only cut down on the time they waste on it, but will also drastically reduce your chances of getting viruses and spyware on your network.
   
2. Replace Old PCs. While it’s hard to truly estimate how much total time is wasted waiting on an old, slow computer to process tasks, start up, etc., I can tell ya, it adds up. Let’s say your old PC takes 10 seconds longer to process a task than a fresh, new one. Might not seem like a lot, but with users averaging 100-150 tasks a day conservatively are wasting 16-25 minutes a day. Add in the crashes and other problems old PCs cause and you’re probably closer to 30-35 minutes a day.
   
3. Maintain Your Network. Another tip that will save you a lot of time is patching, updating and optimizing your server and workstations. You’d be surprised how much slower even a new machine will start to run if not maintained properly.
   
4. Document management. This is a HUGE time-saver if you are a paper-heavy office (like attorneys, doctors, contractors, etc.). But even if you aren’t, scanning and storing paper documents so they can be searched on and located in seconds rather than minutes or hours is a HUGE time saver. Plus, it’s a greener solution, improves document security, enables users to access critical documents remotely AND (if that’s not enough) prevents important paper from loss or damage.
   
5. Implement SharePoint or Other Business Collaboration Software. Be honest: how much time is wasted in your office because people are duplicating efforts, can’t find information and documents they need or backtracking to FIX mistakes made? This, like time wasted on old PCs and downtime, may be hard to calculate, but I would conservatively guess that folks are wasting at least 30 minutes a day or MORE because of disorganization. That’s why we recommend growing companies implement some type of collaboration software that will help organize projects and information, making it easier for everyone to get on the same page .

Want To Implement Any Of These In Your Office?

      Give us a call at 702-869-3636 and we can show you how these technologies (and dozens of others we offer) can streamline your operations, saving you LOT of time!

To see images the way they are intended to be seen, calibrate your monitor so that what you see is what you get. Here’s how.

Read more.

With social media becoming a widely spread way of finding and connecting with customers, prospects and business partners, it’s about time someone came up with a way to pull all these contacts together in one spot.

     Xobni is an Outlook plug-in that pulls contact information from several sources including LinkedIn profiles, Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce, Hoovers and Yahoo mail. It also organizes your e-mails into threaded conversations and makes searching for documents and e-mails much easier.

     If there is a phone number, address or company name in an e-mail, that person’s information profile will be automatically populated. It’s the same thing if one of your contact’s e-mail addresses matches a profile on Facebook, Yahoo or LinkedIn. Company information is automatically pulled from Hoovers.

     Another cool feature is the contact statistics, which gives you a graph showing what times people tend to send you e-mail so you can quickly identify the most likely times you’ll be able to reach that person. Additionally, it ranks that person with regards to the number of e-mails exchanged and displays the balance between sent and received e-mails. Xobni Actions supplies you with quick templates for asking a contact for their phone number or to schedule a meeting. Icons for LinkedIn, Facebook, and Hoovers allow you to quickly pull information from these sites including Facebook updates.

     While there is a free version you can download, the paid version only costs $30 and gives you advanced search capabilities.

Scanners are the critical link between the non-digital and the digital world. Any picture or document can be turned into a digital format with a scanner. When looking for a scanner, you want to get one good enough to do what you need it to do, but avoid overpaying for features you will not use. The first thing to look at is resolution.

Read more.

1.      1.Have One! As the old adage goes, “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.” When it comes to disaster recovery, nothing could be more accurate.
If something happens to your office, will your employees be able to work from home? Do you have an alternate plan for your phones? Where would you temporarily set up shop? How quickly could you get technology equipment you need to function like computers, scanners, or printers? How will you access the Internet? Make a point to document the answers to these questions. 

2.     Onsite Server “Virtualization.” In a downtime situation, virtualization is basically a business owner’s lifeline to his business. Once only available to big businesses with deep pockets, this now affordable technology can literally get you back up and running just as you were before the disaster… in as little as 24 hours. If the disaster doesn’t take out your whole office, virtualization can have you back in business the same day.  Here’s how it works. A second server makes exact copies of everything on your server—operating system, software applications and data—every 15-60 minutes.

This server replica, also known as an “image,” can take over if your main server fails or gets corrupted. No need to re-load software, reconfigure your network, or re-load your data. In as little as 30 minutes, everyone in your company can get back to work, just as they were before the downtime. Compare this to the days or WEEKS it could take without virtualization; the productivity and money savings is staggering. Side Note: If you are still using old tape backups, you NEED to throw them away and virtualize your server with an offsite backup!

3.     Offsite Image of Your Server. Fire, flood, theft, natural disasters, or even faulty office sprinkler systems can physically damage your office equipment, including your server and your backup system.  

      Head this off by having an exact copy (an image) of your server’s operating system, settings, programs, and data sent daily to an offsite location. Also make sure this image can be quickly loaded on to a server and shipped to you. With this in your plan, a tornado could rip open your office and destroy everything, yet you could be back up and running within a few days.
Need Help In Writing Your Company’s Disaster Recovery Plan?
Call ITS Today: 702-869-3636

Are you getting a “USB device not recognized” error for a USB mouse, keyboard, or other USB device? Already tried normal fixes, such as uninstalling and reinstalling the driver, but it’s still not working? A possible solution may surprise you.
Read more

BusinessDictionary.com defines a hidden cost as “Expense not normally included in the purchase price of an equipment or machine, such as for maintenance, supplies, training, and upgrades” and typical computer service is wracked with them. Lots of these types of expenses can pop-up in the form of unexpected computer problems that lead to major downtime. And, as many businesses know, time is money. If your systems are down, that means you are paying your whole staff for an entire day with little productivity.

That is why many small businesses are switching to a fixed-price model of I.T. services (often called “managed services”) where the focus is on preventing issues from happening, rather than reacting to the problems as they come up. While paying by the hour may seem cheaper on the surface, the cost of being down far out-weighs the potentially higher investment of preventing issues.

To find out if your company is at risk for downtime, call for our FREE report: “What Every Small Business Owner Must Know About Protecting Their Company’s Critical Data And Computer Systems” 702-869-3636

Do you want to lock and password-protect your important folders in Windows 7 or Vista? If you have multiple accounts including one with administrator privileges in Windows 7 / Vista, then you can set access privileges for individual folders.
Read more