Tech and business: four ways to utilise technology for your work

April 11, 2013 by admin 3 Comments

Technology and business have been working hand-in-hand since the ‘80s, so it’s no surprise that today, gadgets and hardware can do wonders for workplace productivity, communication, and accessibility.

When it comes to technology, there is an abundance of choice but it can be hard to know what to choose. If you’re looking to utilise technology in your workplace, here are four tools that can help dramatically improve efficiency, workflow, and collaboration in your business.

Forget the bird – the cloud is the word

Cloud computing is this year’s latest buzzword, but it isn’t just hot air. Cloud computing basically allows you to upload files onto a server that can be accessed from anywhere at any time; essentially, all your information is now literally at your fingertips.

For document storing and sharing, Google Drive is your best friend. Collaborate, collate, and edit documents with others in your workplace – you can even have a chat thread where everyone can discuss the document you are working on. For larger files (including presentations and videos), Dropbox or Yousendit are the way to go.

Task-management tools

Every project has certain steps and tasks, and nothing is more frustrating than not knowing what you are supposed to contribute to a project, or what stage the project is currently at. Luckily, task management tools like Asana and Hitask can help; you can assign certain tasks to team members, track project statuses, and even pass projects on to colleagues. For a simpler to-do list platform, Toodledo is the way to go.

Have a dedicated social media team

No matter what company you are with, social media can help you. Social media helps you connect to potential influencers and customers, and enables you to share your latest campaigns or ideas with people who are interested in what you have to say.

Having a company or brand Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube (and possibly Pinterest) account will benefit your company in ways like never before. However, don’t assume that social is easy. To do it right, you need a dedicated social media manager or social media team to help manage, grow, and engage the community – and that’s a full-time job.

Consumer products: how can tablets help you?

Tablets are everywhere now, and for good reason – they are great for accessibility, communication, and for convenience. Why not utilise this for your company? If you’re running a restaurant, have waiters take orders on an iPad mini. If you’re in consulting, equip your consultants with tablets so they can quickly pull up web pages, type up notes, or check the web for information when dealing with a client. It may seem expensive now, but equipping your team members with this technology will make them seem professional – plus, it helps you get things done. –

Author byline: From laptops to gaming, +Kayla Jenkins loves everything tech. One day, she’ll find some office space for lease and start her own tech company.

Secure Internet Gateways: what are they and how do they work?

April 11, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

While the Internet has become invaluable in today’s modern world, it is also a place that is rife with risks and dangers. So, how can individuals and businesses protect themselves against the dangers of going online?

Both businesses and individuals these days spend more and more time online, with the internet and advanced technology enhancing both personal and business lives in many ways. However, the internet is also a place where danger can lurk in many different guises, which is why it is vital for individuals and businesses to take measures that can protect them from these dangers with solutions.

What is a Secure Internet Gateway?

With an ever increasing number of people going online it comes as no surprise that the amount of crime that now takes place online is also increasing. Even though for most business or agency websites there are often a huge number of genuine users accessing their systems every day there is also a considerable number of people that are trying to access the site either to defraud or shut down the website. This can take the form of malware, spam, DDOS (Distributed Denial of service), Trojan and now also Phishing and bots through social media sites, all designed to gain access to your site maliciously.

All of these dangers are global in nature and these threats are big…and are just getting bigger. For this reason websites need some form of protection from these attacks, and that is where a Secure Internet Gateway comes in.

A Secure Internet Gateway is essentially a secure connection to the internet that help protect any networks, websites and company IT systems from external attacks or cyberthreats as they are more commonly known. This Secure Internet Gateway is designed to allow in any genuine users wanting access to a website whilst preventing those that are seen as a threat from gaining access.

How does a Secure Internet Gateway work?

To provide businesses and government agencies with the highest levels of security when allowing users access to their websites Secure Internet Gateways provide a number of core methods to prevent unwanted threats from attacking their sites. These include:

· 24/7 threat analysis 365 days a year to ensure nothing can get through the Secure Internet Gateway without first being checked

· Security checks made on every users accessing a site and then compared against a list of key possible risks

· The use of necessary counter-measures to effectively combat any kind of threat trying to gain access to the website ensuring that a site remains secure at all times

Although there are a huge number of unique threats out there, most providers of Secure Internet Gateways reduce this number to a much smaller number of general threats. This means that all security checks are carried out in the smallest amount of time possible so that users don’t have to wait long periods before being able to access the site.

New legislation released by various governments around the world is ensuring that many government agencies are now working to strict guidelines when using Secure Internet Gateways to ensure that these sites are more secure than they have ever been before.

For more information on Secure Internet Gateways, take a look at this video:

Author bio: Phil Bryan is a trainee lawyer who is aiming to specialise in family law. He has worked in many fields in the past, including a data centre similar to Macquarie Telecom.

10 Alternatives to Google RSS News reader

March 14, 2013 by admin 3 Comments

Everyone’s favourite Free RSS Google reader “Google reader” is set to retire on 1 July. Google reader is a free RSS aggregator service where you can add rss feeds from different websites and track all the different feeds data from those websites in one place

In a Google blogpost google’ senior vice-president of technical infrastructure, Urs Hölzle, said google Reader launched in 2005 will be retired as part of a Google spring clean.

The best RSS reader options after Google reader

There are different types of rss readers , some of them are “Desktop RSS readers” , “Standalone RSS reader” software” , RSS reader apps and also plugins that attaché to your favourite browser

Well luckily Google is not the only provider that provides a free rss reader service , so here are some alternatives that do a excellent job of aggregating all the news you interested in in one place

Feedly News reader

Feedly is a news aggregator or RSS feed reader application for various Web browsers and mobile devices running iOS and Android. It compiles news feeds from a variety of online sources for the user to customize and share with others Connect here at feedly

FeedDemon Lite or pro

Feed demon is a RSS and Atom feed readers. FeedDemon has a clean interface,is excellent for managing hundreds of feeds (or more); lets you set up watch lists; offers an online edition; syncs podcasts with iPods and other handheld media players.

Its Flexible, easy to read and organize news and articles from different websites. This used to be free but now they have a FeedDemon Pro or FeedDemon Lite. Download here

Fuzzy Duck RSS Reader 1.6.0.0 ( FREE)

Fuzzy Duck RSS Reader was designed to be a freeware RSS, ATOM and RDF news reader. Simple, fast and extremly small, this reader is designed to sit on your desktop and give you the latest headlines and descriptions from all of your news feeds DOWNLOAD HERE

Bloglines Web-based newsreader

The Bloglines Web-based newsreader runs inside your browser; no software to install; it’s free. It requires no software installation, so you can access your newsfeeds from any Internet-enabled computer.

Download here

Feedreader ( FREE windows application)

Feedreader is a free RSS and Atom aggregator for Windows. It has a stripped down, though configurable, three-pane interface similar toNetNewsWire on Mac OS X. Recent beta versions use MySQL as database back-end.

Website – www.feedreader.com

Feedreader is a FREE RSS news aggregation solution. There is also a online version ( Feedreader Online )allows you to view your feeds from any web browser, on any device, without installing any software

NEWSGATOR FOR OUTLOOK

If you already rely heavily on your Microsoft Outlook, this newsreader is for you. NewsGator 2.6 is a unique newsreader, in that it integrates with Microsoft Outlook, thereby allowing Outlook users to browse newsfeeds from within the same program that delivers daily e-mail.

Go to thier website

RSS Bandit

RSS Bandit is a nice, simple feed reader that lets you browse news in an organized fashion and has a Microsoft outlook type interface. With this software you can organize feeds in folders, RSS Bandit also detects relations between individual posts and threads them logically

RSS Bandit is a RSS desktop feed aggregator.Check screenshots and download here

RSSOwl

RSSOwl is a free and powerful news feed reader. RSSOwl lets you gather, organize and search news in a convenient, easy to use interface with endless flexibility.

Download RSSOwl 2.1.6
Release Notes | Other Systems & Languages

Many people saddened by the announcement of this demise of Google reader have taken to Twitter using the #SaveGoogleReader hashtag, determined to keep the site alive by creating a online petition, you might wanna join the cause if you still like Google reader

when the visual bee comes to help with PowerPoint

March 4, 2013 by admin 3 Comments

I’m sure everyone of you who needs to del with documents at some part of time when you came across PowerPoint wished there was a wizard or a easier way to create Nice looking PowerPoint documents without all the hassle of going through all the hoops.

Powerpoint Presentation Maker – Visual bee

Well worry not any more!! visual bee is just the answer to your this problems.

VisualBee enhances your plain presentation in PowerPoint automatically and easily , creating an exciting and powerful showcase. It’s the graphic design PowerPoint plugin you need and once used will never be without. Learn how VisualBee can help you right now.

It even pulls graphics from the servers so that you dont have to go looking for appropriate graphics to add to your presentation. Right now visual bee is available for free as a plugin for PowerPoint which will enable you to make you professional or elegant PowerPoint presentations, but you will need to shell out a small fee to save the presentation to your pc.

Review Powerpoint plugin – Visualbee

VisualBee is easy to use. Just insert your desired content to a blank PowerPoint presentation and press “enhance presentation”. The VisualBee PowerPoint plugin (add-in) will index the content of your PowerPoint presentation and will create a professional and effective showcase.

October 8, 2010 –VisualBee.com was chosen StartUp of the day by Microsoft BizSpark, the leading startup network.

So for all the slackers out there in the corporate world ( or the keen people who want real good presentations without the hard work) this might be a good way to save some time working and more time spent shopping or at the coffee shop while visual bee is working for ya. Enjoy

You can get more details from their website at http://visualbee.com/

Review of Anti-Virus for PC – Norton 360 Multi-Device

February 28, 2013 by admin 3 Comments

Norton antivirus , AVG Antivirus , McAfee antivirus, Kaspersky, there are numerous software’s available to defend your computer against the internet baddies and choosing the right one makes you spoilt for choice. There has been numerous big corporate tech companies that have been at the receiving end of hackers recently. Google , yahoo and many big companies have been in the news for systems being compromised. But its not only the big companies that can get attacked by hackers and viruses but also the home user who is at risk nowadays.

Security threats an viruses are just around the corner on the Internet these days and protecting your computer against them is compulsory because as long as you surf the internet your pc can be vulnerable to attack and viruses. Whenever you go online , visit a website ,download a file, click a link, your PC is in danger of getting infected by various types of malware and viruses. A secure software is required to defend your pc or computer against worms, Trojans and hackers.

I have used Norton internet security before and i used avg antivirus before i again switched to the NEW Norton 360 Multi Device. I received a copy to review and i was hooked once again to my favourite antivirus , just because they have tweaked the anti-virus quite a bit to use the least power available from your pc to run the software and also making the running of the antivirus very smooth and unobtrusive to normal internet surfing.

Download link : http://au.norton.com/downloads/

Norton 360 Multi-Device

The first thing that immediately got my attention when i got the software was that the Norton 360 multi device not only offers protection for your desktop computer , but also can be used to protect your ipad or iphone or android device and that’s surely a bonus. With fast internet on smartphones and tablets now available you need to secure all these devices with a antivirus software solution, as they all store personal information and passwords that can easily get stolen.

Norton 360 Multi-Device combines powerful PC, Mac^®, and mobile device protection into a single, software packaged solution, so you can safely surf, shop, share, and socialise online, no matter which device you use. It protects against viruses, unsafe websites, and other threats.This software can also be used to create backups for your most important files and folders, to the location you specify

Screen shot of the software and protection it offers

Key features that i like in this software package is

It lets you remotely lock and locate a lost or stolen mobile device and even erase the Stuff on it to ensure your private information stays that way
It backs up files stored on your PC
Defends your PC from threats and harmful websites and scans your email for threats
Browse, shop, bank, and socialize online with 24/7 security
One locations to easily manage protection for all of your devices.

If you wondered how all this is done , its all in the cloud nowadays and the Cloud-based management brings it all together, letting you easily control your protection for your various devices from one convenient place on the Web.

This software package includes an antivirus tool, firewall, anti-malware, a backup system and a PC tune up utility, all the necessary elements needed to protect you against any threat. To keep your pc running smoothly you often need to tune it up and with this software package you don’t need to get another separate tuning software to tune up your pc , Norton 360 has a tune Up section module which provides a set of utilities for disk optimization, temporary file clean-up, diagnostic report, or start-up manager. These are meant to optimize your system, resulting in improved execution speeds and overall improved performance.

Here are some requirements for this software

· 300-MHz or faster processor
· 256 MB of RAM
· 300 MB of available hard disk space
· CD-ROM or DVD drive (if not installing via electronic download)

Try it and you will not go back , it retails for anywhere between AUD $129.95 (1 year protection for up to 5 devices)

Secure Internet Gateways: what are they and how do they work?