Microsoft’s April releases include new apps and updates to old favorites

Several major updates to Office 365 were published in April. The worldwide rollout of Outlook Customer Manager and the introduction of Microsoft To-Do are particularly good news.

Outlook Customer Manager

Outlook Customer Manager was first introduced in November to Office 365 customers who take part in the early release program. Now it’s available to everyone who has a premium subscription. This nifty tool brings CRM (customer relationship management) to Office 365.

With Outlook Customer Manager, all of your customer interactions and information are tracked and organized in a timeline that’s visible beside your inbox. The information, which includes emails, calls, notes, meetings, tasks, deals, and deadlines, is automatically collected from your Office 365 environment. You can also use associate tasks with a contact, and receive timely reminders of upcoming events and deadlines.

Some of the best features include:

• When an email arrives, it’s scanned by Outlook Customer Manager; if it contains a request for a meeting, file, or information, a reminder is automatically created on your Today page.
• You have the option to share customer information across teams; that way every team member who interacts with a customer can get the full picture of the relationship.
• Customer information can be auto-filled from Bing. When you’re setting up a new company, Outlook Customer Manager will suggest company information based on Bing information, which you can accept to auto-fill fields like address and website URL.
• You can use Cortana, Microsoft’s personal digital assistant, to manage setting up meetings with customers, taking this often time-consuming task off your hands.

There’s also a handy mobile app that provides access to the same information available on your desktop. It’s only available for iOS so far, but apps for additional platforms are in the works.

Outlook Customer Manager is integrated into Outlook and is accessible from the home tab in your Outlook inbox.

Microsoft To-Do

Just released in preview, Microsoft To-Do is an intelligent task management app that brings the satisfaction of checking things off your to-do list to your desktop and pocket. It can be accessed on Windows 10 devices, the web, and iPhone and Android.

Every day starts with a fresh, blank “My Day” list. You can add items yourself or let Microsoft To-Do give you suggestions it gleans by looking at all of your to-dos and prioritizing the most important ones. As you complete items, just click to check them off your list. To make this even more helpful, you can add reminders, due dates, and notes to to-do items.

In addition to the daily “My Day” list, you can create as many separate lists as you’d like – for work, travel, school, groceries, etc. You can personalize each list with its own colors and theme to help you quickly identify each one.

Microsoft To-Do syncs across multiple devices, so your mobile phone, desktop, and tablet all display the most current information. Plus, it’s free – so why not give it a try?

Other April Updates

As part of its April updates, Microsoft also tweaked some of its other offerings:

• The PowerPoint Designer now works on iPads. It was already available on Windows desktops, Macs, and other tablets, but now iPad users can take advantage of it too.
• Office 365 support for groups has been expanded. Now you can more easily access documents in your frequently used groups from within Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Skype for Windows 10 is fully released. The newest version, called Windows 10 Creators Update, is packed with new features like mini view and integration of a new app, Paint 3D, which allows you to create or modify 3D objects and transform 2D objects into 3D.

Along with these new apps and features, Microsoft released several security and compliance updates geared toward enterprise subscribers. Office 365 Threat Intelligence is now generally available, and Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) can be used to protect users from malicious links in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.

Outlook Customer Manager and Microsoft To-Do are the best news in this batch of updates. These apps are welcome additions to the Microsoft digital toolbox. Kudos to Microsoft for keeping the new products coming.

There are viruses that can be implanted on a computer in 2017, and lie in wait until a network becomes vulnerable before attacking. Unfortunately, viruses have come a long way from 20 years ago. The term virus was coined early on in computer history, but it’s every bit as relevant today as it was then. Just like biological viruses adapt to Purell and antibiotics, so too have viruses learned to adapt to new security measures.

Brain in 1986

Brain was the first reported computer virus on DOS, and was announced in January of 1986. It spread via floppy disk, and spawned generations of hackers with its ability to move from computer to computer. Brain appeared to be little more than a prank (courtesy of two developers in Pakistan), a joke in which the hackers actually revealed their real location in the text of the virus. Because the virus did little to harm people’s data or machines, it often went entirely unnoticed by users.

The Evolution

Today we refer to viruses as a specific kind of malware, one that can self-replicate and continue its destructive path indefinitely. While Brain may be one of the famous early viruses because it came about when computers were experiencing more ubiquity, self-replicating programs date back to the 1940s. Programs in the early days might slow down processing time, taunt users with cryptic messages, or severely impact performance. Once Brain was no longer a news items, new forms started to pop up. The ones that followed famously infected files from Yale University, destroyed files in Jerusalem, and exploited computers that were known to have buffering vulnerabilities. Viruses could be the product of hackers, or sometimes of legitimate company’s software.

Viruses Today

Viruses have gotten faster and more efficient to make them a force to be feared. They can delete photos, files and entire storage libraries. They’re developed to target Word, Outlook, Windows OS, Mac OS — nothing is safe. They can be designed to affect Facebook or Twitter users, or programmed to steal credit card information straight for the source. Hackers may be out for pure destruction or chaos, or potentially for ransom. The more the average person understands them, the faster hackers create new tricks to get in. Viruses can come in the form of a pop up, an email from a coworker, or a completely undetectable program that waits until the time is right.

Protection for Everyone

The physical world will never provide total safety, and the same holds true for the virtual world. But there are preventative measures you can take to safeguard your company from viruses that go beyond anti-malware and perimeter protections. Security needs to have layers to fend off the intelligent viruses of 2017.

{company} is the trusted choice when it comes to staying ahead of the latest virus developments and can provide you with tips, tricks and news. Contact us at {phone} or send us an email at {email} for more information.

Used by permission

Become a force to be reckoned with this May the Fourth with a strong password that works behind the scenes of your accounts.

May the fourth is quickly approaching. This exciting day marks a time when the world’s attention turns to celebrating an iconic movie series that has generated a following spanning more than 30 years. On May 4th, the world will celebrate Star Wars Day in a variety of ways. These include dressing up as their favorite character, creating tasty treats that depict iconic scenes, binge watching the series and numerous other creative ways of paying homage to the Star Wars movie franchise. People of all ages, and who live all over the world, will do their best to live up to the Star Wars Day slogan of “May the Fourth Be With You!”

There’s Another Reason to Celebrate That Day, Too

Star Wars Day is not the only important event that is happening on May 4th, though. That day has been designated as World Password Day 2017. It marks the day that you can join thousands of people and organizations across the globe as they take a pledge on social media to make improvements to their password habits. Industry giants like Intel, Dell, Lenovo, TeleSign, BBB and more, are supporting World Password Day and propelling people to embrace its initiatives.

Active Internet Security Involves More Than Just Passwords

These days, maintaining your security online is vital to protecting everything that is important to you. Whether it’s your social media accounts, email or bank account, ensuring that your information is secure and private is vital to protecting everything from your job and your money to your reputation and your relationships. Unlike in the past, though, a strong password is only the starting point in staying secure online.

Step One: Create a Strong Password

After you create a strong password — or even a passphrase as suggested by the Password Day website — you’ll need to move on to the other three steps to fully secure your online existence.

Step Two: Create Different Passwords

It’s important that you create a different password for every site you visit. A useful analogy to help you realize the dangers that exist if you use the same password everywhere you visit online is the damage that can be done to your life if it took only one key to open your front door, your safe, your bank and your car. The criminals who steal passwords use them to get into websites of all types — often with a large success because people use the same password in multiple places.

Step Three: Find a Password Manager

To facilitate quick access to your sites, you need a good password manager that stores all your passwords safely and securely. A master password is required for you to access your password manager. Because the master password is only recognized from a registered device, it’s hard for for someone to log on from an unknown device.

Step Four: Add Multi-Factor Authentication

Chances are, you’ve already been using — or at least been exposed to — multi-factor authentication without knowing its fancy name. Using a fingerprint reader to unlock your phone and having a secret code texted to you before you could access account information for an account whose password you’d forgotten are just a couple of ways that your true identity is verified to protect your information.

When combined, these four steps help you build a more secure online presence. This World Password Day, adopt measures to put the force of a strong password behind you so you can surf the web knowing that your accounts and their information won’t be compromised.

At {company}, we provide our readers with the latest tech information they need to stay secure. For more tips on security, call us at {phone} or {email} us today.

Grab new customers with a smartly designed call to action button. Optimize your CTA buttons today with a few simple tweaks.

Having an engaging social media post isn’t always enough to create conversions. Many businesses are dumping loads of cash into the creative aspects of their ads, but fail to see a spike in clicks. One problem area for your social media ads could be your call to action or CTA. The following are strategies to stop your ads from being passed by without a click from social media users.

Rely on Verbs

Don’t be afraid to issue out commands when creating clickable CTA buttons. In fact, research has shown adding in words such as “like,” “share,” “retweet,” and “comment” on your social media posts are more likely to produce the desired results. Make your CTA simple with actionable phrases. Examples could include “Download my book now,” “Explore more here,” and “Click here to join my team.” Don’t try to be witty or cute with your CTA language. You don’t want browsers to feel confused and not click the CTA button. Infuse the CTA with high energy. Sprinkle with phrases such as “sign up now” and “join today.”

Reduce Options

Presenting too many CTA options is a fatal flaw. You want to keep things as simple as possible to get the clicks you need for a successful campaign. If you give potential customers too many options to choose from, they may get confused and decide not to click on the provided links.

Create Urgency

You want to give prospective customers the sense that if they don’t act now, they’ll miss out on a once in a lifetime deal. Consider using language that provokes an instant click. For instance, your post could read “Last Chance Sale” or “Final Deal Days.” Urgency can also be created in other manners besides language. You can use exclamation points or bold text to create a similar effect.

Decide on a Hook

Before designing any call to action button, you have to slip into the head of your prospective customer. Your customers’ biggest question is likely to be “what’s in it for me?” Many people on social media aren’t always looking to buy, so you need to consider how to hook them without an initial commitment from them. A call to action button for a giveaway or freebie will earn you more clicks than buy links. Don’t trick readers with giveaway or freebie promises to just get clicks. Your landing page should match up to the promises given in the social media CTA.

Multiple CTA Options

Don’t limit yourself with only one CTA within a social media post. Make it even simpler by including multiple clickable links within an ad. For instance, share buttons could be added to both the top and bottom of a post. Call to action buttons can even be placed directly on an image. Since social media is image driven, it makes sense to put a CTA inside photos included with your posts. For instance, advertise a giveaway on Instagram by putting image text reading “Double Tap to Win Today!” Use header images as well to create clickable CTA buttons. Your graphics can encourage social media users to find and press the CTA button at the top of your profile page.

Look at Analytics

Comparing the clicks between social media ads provide you with insight into what calls to actions are working for your marketing campaign. Once you find out what CTA is performing better, you can make the necessary adjustments. For instance, if you change the CTA font color from green to red, you may end up seeing a spike in conversions. Remember to create different CTA buttons for each social media platform. Campaigns working on Facebook may not necessarily perform well on Twitter.

A Strong call to action buttons will create more meaningful engagements with your social media followers. Don’t be afraid to chuck what isn’t working and start over. A fresh new spin on a CTA could be just what you need to drive traffic to your website.

In honor of Earth Day 2017, we’ve put together some easy guidelines to help you tackle what has proven to be an ongoing challenge for many businesses – energy consumption. As the use of technology in the workplace continues to rise, so does the average business’ hydro use. Not only is a high utility bill hard on your budget, it’s hard on the planet.

Greenhouse gasses come from many sources, and hydro production is a major contributor. Taking steps to reduce your business’ carbon footprint is, in the grand scheme of things, a pretty simple way to do some good for the environment.

Give these tips a try, and see what a difference lowering your energy consumption makes. 

1. Always buy ENERGY STAR qualified products for your small business. The ENERGY STAR mark indicates the most efficient computers, printers, copiers, refrigerators, televisions, windows, thermostats, ceiling fans, and other appliances and equipment available in today’s market.
2. Turning off computers and other equipment when not in use can result in enormous energy savings. There is a common misconception that screen savers reduce energy use by monitors, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Setting your systems to automatically switch to sleep mode or manually turning monitors off is a much better energy-saving strategy.
3. To maximize savings with a laptop, plug the AC adapter into a power strip that can be turned off, or will turn off automatically. The transformer in the AC adapter draws power continuously, even when the laptop is not plugged into the adapter.
4. Many people believe that technology lasts longer if it’s never powered off. This belief carries over from the days of older mainframe computers but has no bearing on today’s technology. Powering off equipment that is not in use won’t damage the technology in question, and can cut down on your total energy consumption significantly.
5. Consider buying a laptop for your next computer upgrade; they use much less energy than desktop computers, resulting in long-term savings.
6. Unplug battery chargers when the batteries are fully charged or the chargers are not in use. Even when adapters and cords are sitting idle, they’re still drawing power from the socket.
7. Studies have shown that using rechargeable batteries for products like cordless phones and PDAs is more cost effective than disposable batteries. If you absolutely have to use disposable batteries, check with your local trash removal and recycling facilities about safe disposal options. Batteries release harmful chemicals when they start to break down, and should never be tossed in the trash.
8. It’s not just computers you need to be thinking about. In fact, it’s not even just your office equipment you should be making adjustments to. Many appliances continue to draw a small amount of power when they’re switched off. These “phantom loads” occur in most appliances that use electricity, such as televisions, stereos, computers, and kitchen appliances. In the average home, 75% of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. This can be avoided by unplugging the appliance or using a power strip and the strip’s on/off switch to cut all power to the appliance.

These small changes can add up to a big decrease in your business’ overall energy consumption and costs. Something as basic as a few new power strips and a couple of tweaks to your computer settings can make a noticeable difference in a relatively short amount of time. Making an effort to be a little greener around the office might just help make the world around you a little greener – and put a bit of green back in your pocket while you’re at it.

Want to learn more about the changes you can make to your technology infrastructure that can reduce your energy consumption? Contact {company} at {email} or {phone} today.