Entries by Bob Appleby (1525)

Thursday
May112017

Microsoft Announces Windows 10 features coming in fall update during 2nd day of Build 2017 Conference…

The Fall Update has been named Fall Creators Update. This is part of Microsoft’s new plan for updating its current operating system semi-annually. While not committed to any specific dates, expect it to be delivered in October of 2017.

One change will be a new design language called Microsoft Fluent Design System. This is the most current version of what started as the “Metro style apps”. This version adds shading, blur effects and animations to the Windows interface and to apps.

More information about the Fluent Design system is available at http://fluent.microsoft.com/.

Windows Story Remix is another addition that is designed to blend photos and videos into stories with a soundtrack, theme and movie transitions. This should be the long need replacement to Microsoft’s Movie Maker which though works for what it does, doesn’t have a lot of features. I can’t wait to get my hands on this new addition.

Other new features announced work not just with Windows but with mobile devices running Microsoft apps on Android and iOS devices:

Timeline – Let’s you jump pack in time to open apps and documents as though you had never left them. Timeline allows you to jump back in time to find what you were working on. It works by using a scrollbar allowing you to scrub through a history of open apps, documents and more. “The Timeline feature essentially allows the user to rewind their system to a previous point in time, similar to how you would rewind a movie. Rewind back to the point in which you wish to resume from, and your system will restore itself as if it had never progressed passed that point.

Pick Up Where You Left Off – This is a Cortana feature that already exists in current Window’s 10 Builds. The idea is that Cortana would track what you’re working on and offer to resume on a document when you switch from a mobile device to a PC or vise-versa. This is similar to Apple’s handoff feature in MacOS.

Clipboard – seems like Microsoft is running a theme here, with the clipboard now being able to be shared between devices as well. OneClip- For those who were living under a rock in May of 2015, you likely missed out on the original hype for OneClip. In short, it was a Microsoft Garage project that leaked to the public, available on a plethora of platforms including Windows, Android, and iOS. Shortly after it had leaked, Microsoft pulled the service from the public, denying access to anyone outside of Microsoft. The main goal of this function is to clip once and paste everywhere. This is all part of Microsoft focusing on productivity enhancements that will improve the way that we work between our devices.

OneDrive Files On-Demand - Microsoft executives say this is the single most requested new feature in the new update. It brings back the "placeholders" feature that was abruptly dropped in early preview releases of Windows 10. With this update, Windows 10 users will once again be able to open File Explorer and see a full representation of all files stored in OneDrive, regardless of whether they're synced locally.

Tuesday
May092017

Enterprise Mobility + Security Training Video

Published on Mar 24, 2017

Learn about Microsoft's Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS) solution from Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President of Enterprise Client & Mobility, as he covers all things EMS and shows you the capabilities in action.

Thursday
May042017

Collaboration updates across your Office apps

Interesting YouTube video describing many of the new collaboration functions available in your Office applications.

Wednesday
May032017

Sophos Conference Part 4 (Sophos Central Wireless)

Sophos Central Wireless is still not ready for primetime. It is still not on par with any of the other top wireless competitors. So if you wish to use Sophos Access Points in conjunction with the Sophos Firewall products do that. They are best used in smaller configurations. These are great products for small offices that only need 1-5 AP’s. While they do support larger configurations they don’t have a real strong wireless connection or able to handle extremely dense configurations. They are reasonable and there is some exciting new functions coming down the path.

One of these is an upgrade to the firmware that will allow the access points to be used as such but they will also be able to work as firewall/routers as well. If you need more power just add more access points. This will probably require better wireless access point technology as well but it is something that we can look forward to.

Tuesday
May022017

Sophos Conference Part 3 (Sophos Central Intercept X)

Artificial Intelligence has been coming along and with Sophos’s recent purchase of Invincea, they are currently working on integrating the machine learning engine into Intercept X. This will provide a greater degree of protection that is continuously learning from the malware that is ceaselessly being produced. There may be an increase in price for those of you that haven’t invested in Intercept X yet but those of you that have will get the upgrade at no cost.

Further development of Intercept X will see more of the features of Sophos Central Endpoint being incorporated in Intercept X. Looking at this in the long term I think that this is the right direction. Having the ability to break out the Intercept X functions though to allow it on sit on top of other anti-virus packages makes it a nice way for us to increase protection on non-Sophos protected systems until we can exchange their current endpoint protection software with a Sophos exclusive product.

Monday
May012017

Sophos Conference Part 2 (Sophos Central Mobile)

Sophos Central Mobile has finally reached parity with the on-premise version. What great news especially since we don’t have to worry about setting up the server. Sophos Central provides hosted services that are constantly being monitored and updated. As new features are developed they are added to the system at no charge and without any sweat off our brow.

Below is a list of the comparative features:

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Feature matrix: http://www.bobstechtalk.com/storage/article-add-on-files/sophos-mobile-7-feature-matrix.pdf

Tuesday
Apr252017

Sophos Partner Conference–Las Vegas

imageI am excited about being here for the Conference. II is always great seeing the PAC group and discussing our experiences both with Sophos as well as with other aspects of our businesses. As the week progresses I will be posting some of the the things that are coming up and that Sophos wants us to be excited about. Probably nothing new to me since we are discussing these things in our meetings but for all of you it could be very compelling to look at some new products to increase your security levels.

Here is an email we sent out today. Let me know if you are interested to be on our mailing list.

Tuesday
Apr182017

Microsoft Office 365 Teams

imageMicrosoft Teams is upon Office 365 Groups and provides an automated/easy method of accessing shared assets for an Office 365 Group. Microsoft describes it as “the best solution for persistent chat among group/team members.

Office 365 Groups is a service that provides cross-application membership for a set of shared team assets, like a SharePoint site or a Power BI dashboard, so that the team can collaborate effectively and securely.

Microsoft Teams is available in the following Office 365 commercial suites: Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, and Office 365 Enterprise E1, E3, and E5 plans. Microsoft Teams is also available to existing Office 365 Enterprise E4 customers who purchased E4 before its retirement.

Microsoft Teams is available in all Office 365 Education suite licensing: Office 365 Education, Office 365 Education Plus, and Office 365 Education E5, as well as existing Office 365 Education E3 customers who purchased E3 prior to its retirement.

We have been testing it internally for several different group functions to see how it works and if it has a place in our communications. Time will tell.

Microsoft is sending out emails attempting to generate interest in this product.

Start Using Teams – will take you to your team site

Download the ready-to-send email – to create the email to send out to your team members.

Monday
Apr172017

Windows Vista support has ended

As of April 11th, it is official. The following article covers:

  • What is Windows Vista end of support?
  • What happens if I continue to use Vista?
  • How do I know if I’m running Windows Vista?
  • Do I need to get Windows 10 to stay protected?

“Windows Vista support has ended” – https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/22882/windows-vista-end-of-support

Microsoft bids farewell to Windows Vista with end of support Dan Thorp-lancaster windowscentral.com

Monday
Apr172017

6 good reasons why you really should use a VPN

imageCale Hunt from windowscentral.com wrote and interesting article describing 6 reasons you should be using a VPN especially in any personal financial or company communication. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection provides a secure point to point connection with the servers your are accessing. When you use a VPN your data is encrypted so even if someone could capture your data stream they won’t be able to read it.

To learn more click on the link above.

Sunday
Apr162017

Happy Easter Everyone

imageHope everyone is enjoying this special holiday with family and friends.

Sunday
Apr162017

Naked Security: Google joins the efforts to halt the spread of fake news

Earlier this week, Google rolled out a new tool to help users around the globe differentiate between real and fake news. Tested on news stories in a handful of countries over recent months, the “Fact Check” tag adds additional information to some of the technology giant’s search and news results. As a Google blog post explains:

This label identifies articles that include information fact checked by news publishers and fact-checking organizations… so people can make more informed judgments

The snippet that’s added reveals the claim and who made it, along with the name of the organization that checked it and what they concluded.

Read on…

Friday
Apr142017

What’s new in Hyper-V for the Windows 10 Creators Update?

Sarah, blogs.technet.microsoft.com

New and Improved features in Creators Update:

  • Quick Create
  • Checkpoint and Save for nested Hyper-V
  • Dynamic resize for VM Connect
  • Zoom for VM Connect
  • Networking improvements (NAT)
  • Developer-centric memory management

Read the article for more detail.

Thursday
Apr132017

IFTTT: 18 Applets for the news

imageFor anyone that likes automating their electronics is much as they can, IFTTT is an application that probably is at the heart of how they do it. IFTTT is a platform for automating some of the test performed by smart devices around your home, but the company has also been working with news organizations to connect with their readers.

To highlight that work, IFTTT has launched a new collection of “Applets for News.”

So what is an Applet. IFTTT’s CEO Linden Tibbets explained that it represents the evolution of what used to be called recipes.

“We’re able to include much more functionality into an Applet, because Applets are both more advanced, and at the same time we made sure they were simpler — Applets are simply the switch [to multiple actions],” Tibbets said.

That might be hard to wrap your head around if you’ve never used an Applet before, so let’s get concrete. The news collection includes Applets created by publishers and by IFTTT itself, and it allows users to do things like automatically send to Slack trending business articles from The New York Times, or save to Instapaper hot stories from the world news subreddit or get an email any time TechCrunch writes about a specific company.

“A lot of media and news organizations are starting to come around to the realization that it’s not just about driving people to one destination, or to web and mobile,” Tibbets said. “It’s really about having a presence across every surface area where people are interested in consuming news.”

Wednesday
Apr122017

Windows 10 Creators Update begins to rollout

I thought with Windows 10 Creators Update beginning to roll out that I would start to highlight some of the messaging it's coming across about the differences in the new version compared to the old and any other information that I may come across about how the update is being done.

In this article by Tom Warren writing for the verge, he discusses what he considers to be the best 10 new features of the Windows 10 Creators Update.

Zach Bowden from Windows Central, posted an article announcing the update and discussing how you can force the update on your own equipment.

Here is another article by Zach Bowden on the official Windows 10  Creators Update  Review.

Mollie Ruiz-hopper from blogs.windows.com, wrote an article describing what’s new in the Windows 10 Creators Update. She also discusses how to get the creators update and some other articles describing some of Microsoft’s other announcements including the Surface Dial.

And of course my favorite go to guy for Microsoft info Paul Thurott.

This ought to get you started.

Wednesday
Apr122017

Panasonic KX-TGP600 Series IP DECT Phone

image

We just got in our first Panasonic KX-TGP600 series IP DECT phone that is compatible with our Sangoma IP Phone networks. Our biggest excitement is how tightly integrated with the Phone Switch it is and quickly we were able to bring it online.

This phone is able to be expanded up to eight standard cordless phones using the KX-TPA60, KX-TPA65, KX-UDT121 or KX-UDT131.

The benefits of SIP communications are especially compelling today: the reduced hardware costs and simplicity of routing your company’s calls over the Internet can mean huge savings on your monthly telephone bill. For small and medium-sized businesses, Panasonic’s new KX-TGP600 SIP cordless phone system is the ideal solution. In addition to the KX-TPA60, which is included with the KX-TGP600, it is expandable with any combination of up to a total of eight Panasonic cordless or desktop DECT phones*, significantly reducing the costs of wiring.

imageThe KX-UDT121 and KX-UDT131 are also fully featured  cordless phones that are compact and rugged and have full duplex hands free mode and headset support which gives the user plenty of options for multi-tasking during a conversation. The KX-UDT121 has Bluetooth® support, allowing a wireless headset to be used if needed. The KX-UDT131 provides IP65-level dust and water resistance for more demanding environments.

The KX-TPA65 desktop DECT phone offers a significant advantage over traditional desk phones. While it features the same range of desktop functionality as its wired competitors, the phone's DECT capabilities mean no wired LAN is required for installation, making the process quick, convenient and straightforward anywhere there's an electrical outlet nearby.

For businesses that need even greater wireless coverage the KX-A406 Wireless Repeater expands the indoor communication area from the standard 164 feet to over 650 feet depending on the environment.

Conventional cordless phones may experience signal fading when the user moves around in locations surrounded by metallic ceilings and walls, thereby making it difficult to hear the other party’s voice and have a conversation. With Panasonic’s reliable Digital Enhanced Wireless Telecommunications (DECT) technology, the KX-TGP600 system greatly reduces signal fading and errors so your calls aren’t interrupted and the conversations remain comfortable, clear and professional. And with the optional KX-A406 wireless repeater, you can extend digital cordless coverage

Wednesday
Apr122017

Google boosts verification after wave of Maps fake listings fraud

imageApparently Google has been having some issues with illegitimate companies populating their maps, some even with ratings. They are getting there through the free to list Google My Business program.

In the Naked  Security Article, John E. Dunn goes into depth about how Google is admitting that it has been working on this problem for awhile.

This is not just a problem with Google’s search engine but other like Bing. So be aware that this is going on and gird yourself against these fraudsters!

Read the entire article here.

Tuesday
Apr112017

Are you using Forms Function in Acrobat?

imageYou will want to look at this article. This is a quick discussion about the origin of forms in Acrobat/PDF files. Things are changing here with one of the two formats that have been adopted being put to bed by Adobe. So if you are using fillable PDF forms take a look at what Foxit has to say about them.

Here is info about this from the Adobe Forums.

Tuesday
Apr112017

Great Lightroom Tip from Scott Kelby

I keep thinking about purchasing a memory card with a built in GPS chip to be able to automatically geotag my photos when taking them since my camera doesn’t have a built in GPS so the suggestion is made to pull out your phone that has built in GPS and quickly take a photo from the same location that you are shooting. Then you can come back at a later time and apply that map location to your other images. See this link for more information.

Saturday
Apr082017

What are my options for getting MS Office for myself?

If you are not needing to be part of team/organization that is shares information and documents, then you will want to consider one of the many personal options. The first is to purchase a perpetual license that can only be put on one machine, period. Your options here are Home & Student $150 or Home & Business $230. The primary difference is that Outlook comes with the Home & Business version. When purchasing one of these two packages you are purchasing the current version of the software that does not have an upgrade path to new version and can only be installed on one machine. The positive point is that you are acquiring at a fixed cost. If you do not upgrade your MS Office with each new version and if you have multiple machines that you want to put it on then you may find that the subscription service of Office 365 is a better option.

On the personal side you have two choices, either a Personal Subscription $70/year or a Home Subscription $100/year.

Office 365 Personal includes

Office 365 Home includes

image image
  • 1-year auto-renewal subscription
  • For 1 PC or Mac, 1 tablet including iPad, Android, or Windows, plus 1 phone
  • Fully installed versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and more
  • Also includes Publisher and Access for PC (not available for Mac).
  • 1TB cloud storage
  • Ongoing access to updates
  • 1-year auto-renewal subscription
  • For 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets including iPad, Android, or Windows, plus 5 phones
  • Fully installed versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and more
  • Also includes Publisher and Access for PC (not available for Mac).
  • 1TB cloud storage per user for up to 5 users
  • Ongoing access to updates

$69.99/Year

$99.99/Year

This should give you some idea of where you want to go with this.