Windows Key + D – Missing the desktop? This will hide all windows and show you the desktop. Press it again and it will bring back the same windows that were active earlier.
Working from home is all about choice & flexibility, but it’s not for everyone. Personally I struggle with it as I prefer to keep my work and private lives compartmentalized. For others though, telecommuting is a necessity or at the very least a viable lifestyle choice. It’s also worth nothing that while many businesses see Telecommuting as “the future of work”, others including many tech companies such as Apple and Google almost discourage it in an effort to improve work culture, collaboration and creativity.
In this blog, I hope to cover some key technical hints and tips to improve productivity. I’ll leave the environmental, motivational and general work ethic issues facing telecommuters for a future blog.
Internet
The speed and reliability of your Internet is extremely important. Without it, you can’t take advantage of the many new technologies emerging for both business and home environments. Ideally you want NBN or high speed cable if it is available. Otherwise you may be stuck with ADSL2 but this can still work well enough for many people.
Be aware that many older high density dwellings aren’t well serviced with high speed services so you may be stuck with wireless and/or satellite services. If so, make sure you monitor your data usage to avoid excessive data usage costs.
Phones:
While a simple diversion from your office phone to your mobile can work, if your office has a VoiP phone system, leverage it! Here’s a previous article HERE
With VoIP, your phone uses the Internet to make calls, so in theory, you can just connect an office handset to your home Internet. Alternatively, connect a headset and softphone software to your PC to turn it into a fully functional Office phone.
Peripherals:
Think about what peripherals you need to work efficiently. For most people the best option is an inexpensive WiFi enabled multi-function printer giving them Colour Printing, copying, scanning and fax.
Space:
Without a suitable space to work, you often end up distracted and inefficient. Try to find or create a private room or space where you “Go to work” at home. If you’re a notebook user, consider an extra screen and docking station to further improve efficiency. While WiFi can allows you to work on the couch in front of the TV, ask yourself, will it really work for you?
Accessing data
I’ve been designing and delivering remote access solutions to businesses for around 20 years. Much has changed in that time but surprisingly, much hasn’t. When working from home you want it to be easy right! You don’t want to worry about backups or copying your work to and from the office. When you walk out into the home office or clients sight, you just want everything there on your notebook, tablet or phone. Maybe even share some data with external people easily and whenever you want? You just want it to work as if you were in the office right?
Many larger businesses have already addressed these items with clearly defined and well designed remote access systems that meet their specific functionality, data security and compliance requirements. But what about small to medium business? Unfortunately, there’s a minefield of the “WRONG” apps and services that appear to provide what you want but often fail to protect your data or comply with your security or even statutory requirements. I’ve written about SoonR previously which solves many but not all of these issues. Beyond this, some work may be required on your office IT infrastructure to better deliver systems to external staff. So scope your requirements carefully and present it to your IT team. You may be pleasantly surprise what is possible!
We’ve all been there – your phone battery is almost dead & you’re in a rush to leave home.
Switch your phone to airplane mode.
This turns off battery-draining wireless and cellular access, allowing your phone to recharge up to twice as fast.
When small business owners think about keeping their files in the cloud, they often turn to services such as Dropbox, Box or iCloud. These services are great for synchronizing data files between multiple devices such as your office & home computers, tablets and phones. They’re also a great way for individuals to quickly share files and folders with clients.
Unfortunately, when the business grows and staff numbers increase, these consumer grade file sync and share solutions start to drop the ball. Once small businesses reach about 5 staff, they may need to start looking for a more business oriented solution.
Here at Insight Integration, we manage a variety of traditional servers and cloud virtual servers for our clients as well as our own systems…BUT…we also use a file sync solution called SoonR.
SoonR, now owned by AutoTask, delivers the file Sync and sharing services we’re all used to with DropBox. What it also brings to SMB is a number of the more traditional IT management and control mechanisms that larger businesses need. These include:
So, if you think you’d like to improve your current data sharing solution or are just ready to put a toe in the water, give Insight Integration a call.
If you’re searching for a term that’s generating a lot of results that aren’t of interest to you. Use the minus sign to eliminate results containing certain words.
For example – searching for “jaguar” returns a lot of hits – which is great if you’re looking to buy a new car but not so good if you’re doing a school project on big cats.
Re-run the search using “jaguar –car” and you’ll get what you’re looking for.
Give it a try!
In business, today more than ever, your orders, quotes, correspondence with clients and suppliers are all sent and stored via email – or more accurately stored in the individual email mailboxes of each of your staff.
With email being so important these days, being able to easily access, search and retrieve both inbound and outbound email is critical.
In addition, as the dependence on email has grown so has the accompanying legal scrutiny. Poor data retention practices can expose businesses of all sizes to a host of potential problems.
So what is cloud based email archiving?
To put it simply – a copy of every email sent and received by your business is sent via a secure channel and stored in a cloud based system.
It’s a separate system from your normal email & doesn’t impact your normal day-to-day use.
What are the benefits?
It’s automated – you set it up once & that’s it. No manual intervention is required.
It’s searchable – rapid search and retrieval for individuals in their personal archive or across the whole company by authorized users.
Ease of use – multiple ways of access. Eg web browser phone or tablet apps.
Legal hold – all email is stored and cannot be modified or deleted. The retention period can vary but the better services store for up to 10 years. Lawyers & compliance people love this!
Unlimited storage – regardless of how much email you add, storage continues to scale.
Compliance for document retention – some industries have compliance requirements for the retention of documents & communications.
No onsite hardware or software is required – these services typically integrate with all the common email systems (including cloud email solutions like Microsoft Office 365) with no requirement for additional hardware or software
What’s the next step?
As always, not all cloud services are equal. Which service best suits you will depend on your individual requirements.
Give us a call on (02) 9259 8500 or drop us on email at [email protected] and we can point you in the right direction.
Are you after free protection for your personal home computer or Mac?
Try Sophos Home. Some antivirus vendors pitch their products to business, some direct to consumers and some do both.
Sophos is a market leader on the business side of the market, but with the release of Sophos Homeconsumers can enjoy the same level of antivirus protection as the Fortune 500 companies on up to 10 Windows and Mac OS devices for free.
Download it for free here: https://www.sophos.com/home
Shifting your I.T. to the Cloud – have you overlooked your phone system?
While some I.T. cloud services actually cost more than their traditional alternatives, a cloud hosted PABX service typically costs significantly less.
Hosted or Virtual PABX systems are really just VoiP (Voice of Internet Protocol) for small and medium business, delivering sophisticated telephony system without the big investment. By default, the core system operates off premises in the cloud and is maintained by your provider. All you need to do is connect your handsets to your network. The net result of this is significant costs saving over the traditional onsite PABX system both upfront and on-going. Secondly, the functionality offered by these systems is the same or better than many high end solutions normally only available to big business.
Advantages of hosted PABX
· No expensive systems to buy, install or maintain
· Reduced call costs
· Reduced line costs – Leverage high speed Internet connections instead of traditional dedicated phone lines.
· Staff can work from anywhere (office, home, hotel, car, push bike…) as if they were sitting at their office desk.
· Highly professional image
· Connect all your offices into one phone system
· Scalable to your changing business requirements
· Highly functional with standard systems including:
o Inter-office call transfer
o Voicemail (and voice to email)
o On hold music
o Conference calls
o Automated attendants
o Customized call flows
· Quick and easy to setup
Softphones
What’s a Softphone? Your computer uses a simple software program and a headset to act as your office phone. No need to buy any other equipment! This suits some people more than others but since it’s an option from most cloud providers, you can actually give your staff the choice.
So…Who you gonna call?
Just about all traditional Telco and Internet service providers have a hosted solution. Some are good, some not so good.
If you’re interested and finding out more about a hosted solution that suits your needs, give Insight Integration a call – we’ll help you navigate the confusing tech lingo to identify what you really need.
Check your iphone battery usage
A common iphone owner complaint is running out of power during the day.
Now there’s an easy way to check which apps are draining your battery over the last 24 hours or last 7 days.
Here’s how to check your stats:
Go to settings
Battery
At the bottom of the screen you’ll also see the amount of time you’ve used your phone since it’s last charge.
Beware this statistic can be quite high & leave you wondering why you spend so much time staring at your phone!!
