Email Tips!

Microsoft Outlook: Attaching Files, Business Cards
Using Outlook email provides several advantages including the ability to send picture files that might be too large for other email applications to handle. Hotmail, yahoo and other email services are often unable to process certain files in email attachments for a variety of reasons. Outlook is effective at providing users with functional and professional-looking correspondence.

If the file is formatted in rich text instead of HTML or plain text, the file will appear as an icon inside of the body of the message. It will probably be placed between the last line and the signature. Just drag it below your signature line to preserve that classic-letter look.

If the attachment is HTML or plain text, it will appear inside what is called the attached line, which exists underneath the subject line. You can also attach a picture file. The GIF file format often triggers a virus or junk filter alert, but JPEG files will usually get through.

Certain files types include programming code. Examples include HTML, GIF or moving picture files, which can still be sent through email. However, taking certain precautions will improve the outcome. Zipping up the files might help you get through these alerts. The zipped files render the file types inside invisible to the email system.

To attach a business card, just go to the insert tab and look at the three icons stacked to the left of the table icon. They are arranged vertically. Selecting the top icon will allow you to insert a business card.

Please give ITS a call for computer repairs in Las Vegas

Remote Access: Windows 7
Sometimes, PC users in Las Vegas experience technical troubles with their computer and need some help resolving a problem. Windows 7 has two ways that you can allow trusted users to have access to your computer. They can either be allowed to take control of your mouse and do the corrections manually, or you can simply allow them to observe without giving them control of your mouse.

Get Ahead with Remote Access!

Remote Assistance

This method allows a person to either watch what you are doing without any manual control, or you can allow them to control the mouse. The user must extend an invitation before this will work. Without the invitation, they cannot access your computer. This is an important safety feature.

Remote Desktop

Called RDP by most administrators, it allows users to connect to another computer. Then, the user is able to work remotely in a manner similar to someone sitting in front of a computer keyboard.

Go to the control panel and click on remote settings. By default, the assistance is allowed. By unchecking the box, your system will be more secure. By clicking the advanced button, you can allow the computer to be observed but not controlled. The amount of time they will be allowed to access your computer is right below the remote control option.

Back in the remote tab, the default setting for RDP will not allow connections to the computer. The most secure option is Network Level Authentication. Press the “select users” button to add trusted users.

Give us a call to have us help your staff work remotely or to get computer repairs in Las Vegas!

Create Your Own Thermometer

Microsoft Excel: Creating a Fundraising Goal Thermometer or Sales Quota Thermometer

This post is designed for people with marginally good Excel skills, if you need further help, you can always give us a call for any computer questions in Las Vegas!

Creating a thermometer in Excel is fun and easy. Begin by inserting a normal stacked column, and be sure to use the final cell from your goal data set. Next, delete the legend on the chart. Right-click and select Format Axis. Take the axis out by clicking None from the menu next to Axis Label. Next, right-click and select Format Data Series. Reduce the Gap Width by sliding the bar to zero percent.

Now you can resize the chart from the border, and you can narrow the body of the thermometer within the border as well. To get rid of the grid lines, just right-click inside the border to Format Gridlines and select No Line. If your original cell value is not close to 100%, go into Axis Options with a right-click. Change the Maximum option from Auto to Fixed, and then change the numerical value to 1.0. If you had .6 here, your thermometer would display 60%.

For the top of the thermometer, select the plot area of the data points, right-click and put in a solid fill color. This will show you how far you have to reach your goal. Finally, go to the Insert tab, select an oval shape for the base, and format the colors and gradients. Remove the shape outline border. This will blend the base with the tube. Grouping them together will allow you to move the tube and base as one unit.

If you need computer repair in Las Vegas, please give us a call!

Using Technology: Small Business Strategies

Technology has the capacity to help small businesses, but only when the goals of the business are clearly defined. Small businesses often turn to technology as a means to survive downturns in the business cycle.

The most pressing issues facing small business concerns:

• Lowering Operating Costs
• Attracting and Retaining Customers
• Enabling Employment of a Remote Workforce

Small businesses interested in using technology for one of these purposes might find it impractical, expensive and time-consuming to acquire and utilize the most advanced technologies available on the market. The needs of small businesses certainly vary by industry, but pervasive technology trends can help identify specific areas where small business owners are likely to invest their precious resources.

Business Server and Software

A small to midsize server can reduce costs and help the business to gain access to virtual customers as well as harness the expanding virtual remote workforce.

Software products designed specifically to address the needs of the small business operation are surging in popularity. Their excellent functionality and low maintenance provide new avenues for businesses to track various transactions, reach new customers and even prepare for the tax season.

Give us a call to see if this technology can help you!

Data Recovery Means that the Infrastructure was Faulty!

Often people call a computer company like ours when their data needs to be recovered.  All of their company files were on a computer or a server and the company either didn’t believe that data backup was important or they had an older system like tape backups that failed to get all of their data back.

When looking at data recovery, it is key to understand a few details.

• It is always more expensive to “recover data” than it is to properly back up data
• It is critical to most businesses to not lose their data.  In fact, with a major data catastrophe, most companies will quickly go out of business (try “remembering” who owes you money…)
• Data recovery is something that can save your hide if your company hasn’t invested in the IT infrastructure to do consistent backups
• Tape backups often fail when servers and data need to be re-built.  (Have you ever tried a “data recovery test run?”  Pretending your systems went down and seeing what your IT team or company can get back for you?
• Repairing a hard drive properly is an extremely complex and stressful activity for a data recovery specialist.  One or two wrong steps in the process and all of the data is gone!

Data Recovery in Las Vegas is expensive, but the alternative…  losing all your data will wipe out most companies!

Cloud Based Microsoft Office — Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 is the company’s foray into cloud based office applications. It’s meant for people who are constantly moving from platform to platform and want a fixed environment to work on their documents based on the tried and true MS Office platform. It is accessible through most web browsers on any major operating systems, including mobile OS’s.

It brings with it a subscription model that offers far more flexible pricing schemes to customers, allowing them to pay per user, per month, without ever worrying about purchasing a product that could be rendered obsolete within a year or two.

It eliminates practically all installation, deployment, and local maintenance costs, while providing up to 80% of the functionality that employees actually use. In addition, certain plans offer a desktop based application rental agreement as well, allowing customers to use a locally installed version of Office 2010 Professional Plus when available, and the cloud based Office 365 when not. It goes without saying that synchronization between the local and online versions of files is seamlessly integrated in all current Microsoft applications. Office 365 at least demands a review by all corporations. Your local service provider can help think through such a decision.

Daqu and Network Security

There is a little malicious trojan that exploits Windows called Daqu.  Daqu was supposedly only affecting Word documents, but it is becoming more and more clear simply going to a webpage containing this malicious font can cause a lot of headaches for your computer network.

Network security is a complex series of cat and mouse.  Hackers and spammers throw junk out there that is designed to get you to web pages you don’t want to go or buy products you don’t need.  The daqu issue is no different.  When you are vulnerable in your computer network you are endangering your whole network and can be assured that your business data is at serious risk.

Microsoft came up with a workaround which will help protect you from the dangers of this malicious trojan embedded in truetype fonts.  We’d suggest that you install it.

If you would like professional computer network management in Las Vegas, give us a call today!

Corporate Policy for Social Networking

In an age where a majority of US residents have their own online presence, it is important to consider the impact of such presence on corporate reputation and representation. Employees, whether deliberately or not, represent their company in their online behavior. This representation can either enhance the reputation of their organization, or tarnish it. Thus, guidelines are in order.

A company with high profile employees should make clear that any information shared publicly could either represent the employees’ own personal perspectives or the company’s. Thus, guidelines should recommend to employees to make explicit in online posts which point of view they are sharing.

Additionally, staff should be clear of the repercussions of reckless information sharing on social networks. While it isn’t in any company’s authority to actually police the social networking activity of its employees outside the work environment, it should be clear to all staff what the consequences are for such sharing, in the short-term and in the long-term.

The Cautious Vs. the Bold

Many large IT departments exercise a significant degree of caution in ensuring their networks function well. This generally involves staying a version or two behind the latest technologies. However, greatness often requires boldness. This has been a balancing act that companies throughout history, from IBM to Apple, have struggled with. Very often, IT departments have stayed on the conservative side of this spectrum — technology generally undergoes a serious amount of testing and waiting before it is deployed slowly throughout the enterprise, generally a couple of years behind the technology that workers themselves use at home.

In the days when companies could not experience stability of a product till the third version, it was understandable. However, these days, far fewer testing cycles are required, and products are far more stable and secure from the onset than before. Thus, the models of extreme caution might not be applicable anymore.

While there might always be a need for some level of testing and planning before an upgrade, it’s important to keep in mind if a large delay is actually hurting the security, stability, and performance of your network, rather than ensuring it. Your IT service provider can help you determine how much caution, and how much boldness, is worth implementing in this day and age.