Email - One of your most important business tools

Today, I wish to discuss email.  Not such a fashionable topic these days with all the hype around social networking, blogging and Google ads.  It has been my experience though, that email has become one of the most important business tools for small and medium businesses.   Since its emergence in the mid 90’s, when gateway protocols allowed private corporate email systems to connect to each other, email has become integrated into our daily business processes. 

Despite its importance, email is often an afterthought to small businesses.

Here are my guidelines for business email

1. Have and use your own domain for your email address.  Ten years ago, it would have been acceptable to use an email address with your isp or one of the free email services like Hotmail or Gmail.  Today when I see a business that does not have their own domain for emails, it raises a red flag. 
2. Make sure that you archive and control your business emails.  So often, small businesses use an email client on an employee’s laptop.  What happens if that laptop is lost, stolen or the employee just decided to keep or delete your businesses emails?  Email us a critical part of your business correspondence, have a policy and know where your email is.
3. Do not use a free email service.  Your email is critical to your business, free email services come with lots of strings attached.   You give up a lot of privacy and the email provider really has no responsibility to you.  Make sure that your email provider is responsible and works for you.

Up until a few years ago, for small businesses who wanted to have a secure, reliable email solution I would’ve recommended an MS Small Business Server which includes Exchange server.  This was a moderately expensive proposition that required regular maintenance. This solution only made sense in businesses that had 10 or more employees.  There really was no good solution for small offices of 1 to 9 employees. 

In the last few years cloud services have exploded and currently there are cloud based exchange services that are inexpensive and can be deployed to an individual, a small office or even up to organizations of 1000’s of employees.

I recommend Microsoft Office 365 hosted exchange services.    The hosted exchange service is currently $4.10 a month per mailbox. This service provides a number of benefits:

1)   25gig per mailbox, it can be allocated as you like

2)      Exchange access with outlook 2007 and above

3)      Activesync for Android, IOS and Blackberry 10 devices

4)      Blackberry cloud services for legacy Blackberries.

5)      Wireless calendar and contact sync for smart phones and tablets

6)      Shared calendar and mailboxes

7)      Email is secure and backed up.

8)      Available archiving services

9)      Control of your companies email.

10)   Spam and antivirus protected

11)   A service level agreement with guaranties

For smaller offices 1 to 10 people, Office 365 Hosted exchange service now provides an economical way to get the same advanced email capabilities that most large corporations have been using for years.  An assistant can have delegation rights and make changes to your calendar, these changes will almost immediately appear on your smart phone.  

For business that already have a Small Business server and are looking at upgrading the server due to capacity, can often avoid the hardware upgrade by moving to Office 365 for hosted exchange, disabling the exchange server function, which in most SBS servers is the biggest drain on resources.  The transition to Office 365 will be much less expensive than a new server for Exchange and your service will be improved, your emails will be protected and your ongoing costs will likely be lower.

Hosted exchange, is one cloud service, that is a real winner in my opinion

If you have a Yahoo account you should read this

As most of you know, I am a nerd with Nerds on Site and I end up having to deal with many computer infections.  About  a week ago, I had a call with a regular client who thought she was infected, she was getting failed delivery emails and people in her contact list were getting strange emails from her. 

I have seen this before, and most cases it turns out that someone the person knows has had their computer compromised and was impersonating the person who is getting the failed delivery emails.  In these cases there is not much you can do. 

However after testing out her computer and sending emails to my email accounts, I could find no infection.  I was quite surprised the next day as I started getting these strange emails from my client Something was definitely still active.

After a little research this is what I found.  The infected accounts are all on Yahoo and it is not the computer that is infected but your Yahoo login credentials are harvested  and sent back to whoever originated the malware.

If you want more info on this you can read about at these following 2 links

Warning to always log out of email - Technology - NZ Herald New

YahooXtra: What actually happened? :: IITP Newsline

In a nutshell here’s what happens, an email arrives from someone you know, it only has a website link in it.  These types of emails are quite common, the one below is the email generated by my browser when I click on the command email link.  This is a perfectly fine email and most people would think nothing about clicking on it.

What the malware does is send out these emails to people in the infected accounts contact list, when you click on the link it takes you to how to get rich on the internet or some such website.  Most people will just close the page and forget about it. 

What happens, however,  is that if you have set yahoo to stay logged on, there is a cookie in your computer and the malware can read your logon credentials. 

What should you do if you are a yahoo user or have an account with an ISP that uses yahoo, Rogers is one such ISP?

•  Log on to your yahoo account and uncheck the keep me logged on box
• Go to  your yahoo mail options  à POP & Forwarding  make sure that there are no unexpected email addresses in the forwarding list.
• Go to your Yahoo account info You will see a section called Sign-in and Security (See picture below)

• Verify that all the email address or phone numbers that are used for verifying or notifying you are yours, If you find some you don’t recognize then delete them
• Change your password

• Log out and close your browser
• Go back to your Yahoo email, it should ask you for your password, make sure the keep me logged on box is still unchecked.

 

As an extra precaution, I would consider always logging out of your web  accounts.

What to do with that old smart phone

Like a lot of people these days, I do a lot of work away from my office.  For this reason, a smart phone is my most important tool and I tend to upgrade to a new phone when my contract allows for a hardware upgrade.  This means that I have a string of old phones that, while they still work, no one else wants (they would need a new battery which would often be more expensive than getting a new phone).

Several years ago, wifi started to become standard on smart phones and this opens up new opportunities for reusing your old smartphone.  A few weeks ago, I replaced my Blackberry Bold 9700 with a Bold 9900 and decided to see how much I could still do with a Blackberry that does not have any cell service.  This is what I found;

What works

• Blackberry desktop works fine, so synching contacts, calendars, music, pictures, etc all work
• Blackberry App world, I was surprised by this, but if you get a blackberry ID for your SIMless blackberry, you can buy and download apps to your heart’s content.
• Web Browsing, this includes using webmail
• All the games and apps
• GPS still works, but many of the capabilities of GPS applications on smartphones are dependent on downloading maps, so they are not much use while you are out and about.
• GPS applications that do not require maps or address info work just fine.  So you could use the gps for position location, speed and direction, geocaching, tracking your route etc.

What does not works

• Blackberry internet service (BIS) and Blackberry enterprise services (BES).  These provide the push email services that most of us are accustomed to.  As such the blackberry mail app is of no use.
• Blackberry Messenger, Blackberry Yahoo, Googletalk, Windows live and AOL clients
• Cell phone service (of course) but this means no SMS messaging as well.
• Blackberry Protect, if you have a blackberry then you should sign yourself up to blackberry protect, it's free and it will allow you to locate your blackberry if lost or stolen and to erase all your data remotely

Alternative to the Apps that do not work

Mail       You 2 choices for email, you can use your browser and webmail or you can use a standalone app called logic mail.

IM          There are plenty of options here, one of my favorites is IMO.IM which is a multi platform Instant messenger

Phone     A great alternative to the cell phone plan is Dell Voice (in Canada).  With Dell Voice you get a free local phone number including voice mail.  This means you can both make and receive calls as long as you have wifi access.

So with a blackberry that has Wifi but no cell phone service you can still use it as a fully functional smart phone: Voice, Email, IM, Games, Calendar etc.  with the restriction that you need the wifi.

How am I reusing my bold 9700?

If you read my previous blogs, you will know that we have a Logitec squeezebox network throughout the house and this system can be easily and completely controlled from the blackberry.  Until now, I have been using my active cell phone in a stand beside my bed.  My SIMless bold 9700 now has a permanent spot on my bedside table.  It is a great alarm clock and with wifi access, I can control the squeezebox network or check the weather or any of the features listed below

Other uses for SIMLess smart phone

Home automation control – home automation systems provide browser access so you could easily control any Smart home appliances.

Home intercom system – Apps like Zello and TalkBox provide free Push to talk capabilities

Book Reader – Kindle, Kobo and Overdrive all work fine

Weather display or photo display

Before you toss that SIMless smart phone away consider how you can reuse it around the house.

Squeezebox part 2 - More than just a clock radio

In my last blog, I talked about the Squeezebox Radio, an internet radio from Logitech. In this blog, I will talk about the entire Squeezebox family and how it is so much more than a clock radio, it’s a whole house digital music streaming system.

The Squeezebox family

1) Squeezebox server

The squeezebox server is the central control for any squeezebox devices. All squeezebox devices will be connected to a server when working.  There are 2 forms of server implementations:  the first is a cloud based implementation http://www.mysqueezebox.com/index/Home .  The second is an appliance based implementation that can run on most windows, mac or linux computers.  It can also run on some of the NAS devices. 

Both the cloud based and the appliance based servers are free and they provide you with the ability to manage your squeezebox devices, select what to play, set any of the features you want.

The squeezebox server can connect to your itunes or windows media library.

2) Squeezebox Media players

Squeezebox has been around for a while, the players come in several forms and have changed over time. The older ones, while maybe not having as nice a screen, still have all the same features as the newer ones.  Currently you can get a squeezebox radio and the squeezebox touch, which is designed to connect to your stereo.  You can see the current line at Logitech http://www.logitech.com/en-ca/speakers-audio/wireless-music-systems .  You can also get a squeezebox media player that will run on you computer.

3) Remote control

You can control your squeezebox system (any of the devices) from every other squeezebox media player directly, using any of the remote control accessories or any computer, smart phone or tablet that is connected to your network.

4) Add in Apps

Another nice thing about this system is that there is a vibrant community of App builders, you can get apps to display the weather, the news, stock tickers, your own pictures, podcast, etc.  This can be quite handy as your squeeze box is usually in an obvious place and having the current weather displayed by your bed is a real benefit.

How I use my squeezebox system

We have a media server which turns on automatically at 5:00 am and off at 1:00 am.  This computer is used for backing up the various computers in the house and to run the squeezebox server.  The squeezebox server has been running mostly painlessly for about 5 years now, I've been digitizing our CD, LP and tape collections slowly.  We currently have 562 albums with 6826 songs on the squeezebox.  Controlling the server and any of the squeezebox player is as simple as launching a browser, so from my blackberry, playbook, computer or any squeezebox player, I can turn on or off any component, select music or whatever else I want to do.

We have 4 squeezebox players: 3 squeezebox radios (sunroom, kitchen and bedroom) and a squeezebox classic in the library connected to the stereo.  Each device can play independently or they can be synchronised (this is the number one feature of the squeezebox system IMHO) in any combination.  On the main floor we have a squeezebox radio at each end and the squeezebox classic in between.  They are all close enough to each other so that you can hear 2 or 3 from any point on the main floor.  We have all 3 on the main floor synchronized so that when you turn one on or off the other 2 also turns on or off, and play whatever you selected.  Usually when you are streaming anything each device gets the signal at a slightly different time so having 2 internet radios playing the same station would get cause irritating echoes.  The squeezebox system takes care of this problem.

So in the morning, while preparing and eating breakfast we have CBC radio playing on the main floor and, as we move back and forth between kitchen and sunroom, it can be easily heard everywhere.

Squeezebox even takes synchronization to another level.  It allows you to set one device as the left channel and one device as the right channel. Every now and then, I want a little louder music in the kitchen (usually it’s when I’m making Indian food and would like to play Indian music loud, they kinda go together)  I found that the squeezebox radio did not quite do it for me and I was looking around at supplementing the radio with some self-powered speakers.  I accidentally discovered this feature and tried it out.  It turns 2 squeezebox radios into a very nice stereo. The radio in the sunroom has a rechargeable battery so all I have to do is unplug it and bring it into the kitchen and a few quick configuration changes and voila! instant indian music, in stereo and loud.   

So if you are thinking about taking the plunge into a whole house digital music system, the squeezebox system is well worth a look

Going off FM radio

I’ve listened to the radio for most of my life and it’s pretty much been FM.  But for a number of years now, I’ve found that the quality of radio reception has been going down.  I think part of it is that radio tuners just do not work as well as they used to.   We have 3 clock radios in the house: kitchen, bedroom, sunroom.  All of them have become mostly unusable, losing the channel when you stand to close, picking up channels from elsewhere if you positioned the antenna wrong. 

Spurred on by the poor quality of my radios, I started looking around for alternatives.  Radio stations have been available on the web for a while now, but because of the need for a computer, it did not fit in to our domestic routine.  Recently Internet Radios have started to appear, the one that caught my attention was the Squeezebox Radio from Logitech.  It caught my attention, mainly because we’ve been using the classic squeezebox to stream our digital music to our tradition stereo for about 5 years now.

The Squeezebox radio looks a lot like a retro clock radio and when plugged into your network (either wirelessly or wired) it can operate just like a normal clock radio but with a whole lot of extra feature.  I ordered a squeezebox radio for the bedroom and simply loved it, so I ordered 2 more one for the kitchen and one for the sunroom, removed the old clock radios (I keep them tucked away just in case there is a network outage).

In this blog, I am just going to talk about the Squeezebox Radio as a standalone replacement for your existing clock radios.  In a future blog, I will talk about how much more the Squeezebox Radio is when part of a Squeezebox Server home media system.

Before I bought the Squeezebox Radio, I actually bought a different internet radio, it had all the features, plus the additional feature of also have a built FM tuner.  Never having used an internet radio I was cautious and thought having built FM would be useful.  Well! This was an example of how it’s not the spec list that is really important, but how it is implemented.  My first internet radio worked fine but it was a pain to use, every time I turned it on, I had to navigate to the one channel I always listened to, about 8 button clicks.  It would also drop the Wifi encryption every month or so and it would take 5 minutes, just as I was going to bed to connect it again.  This radio got recycled in less than 5 months.

The Squeezebox Radio on the other hand was a joy to use right out of the box and it has never lost the wifi encryption.  It is a solid well-built device, here’s my list of what I like about the squeezebox radio as a standalone replacement for your existing clock radio:

1)      Looks and feels like a clock radio, controls are familiar and easy to use

2)      Wonderful sound, deep and rich for such a small package

3)      Solid, well-built and stylish

4)      Plays local stations better than off air radio

5)      Also plays stations from around the world, internet only stations and most music services such as spotify

6)      More flexibility in terms of alarm options, display options

7)      Optional rechargeable battery and remote

Setting it up is fairly easy, you plug it into power and then connect it to the internet, either by physically or wirelessly.  Once it has a network connection you have full access to local and global radio stations as well as many other.  Your squeezebox radio actually connects up to mysqueezebox.com which is a cloud based server for all your squeezebox needs, you can signup for a free account here http://www.mysqueezebox.com/index/Home and then you can control your radio using your browser if you want.

This is an ideal gift for your parents, grandparents anyone that is not really comfortable with computers, particularly if they are living far from the home.  I would recommend that you configure the wireless for them and program the preset keys for their favorite radio stations.

Buttons and Keys and Trackpads!!! Oh My!

I have a confession to make, I love buttons, “Never leave a button unpushed” could be my motto.  I guess that is one of the reasons I became an engineer.  My mouse has 7 buttons.  When I first got my previous blackberry, a bold 9700, I did not discover the 2 buttons on the top of the phone for several months.  They are simply part of the rim and you cannot tell they are actually buttons by looking at them.  Anyways, I was delighted as this gave me two more buttons I could program to do what I want.

Did I say I love buttons? 

What’s wrong with buttons and keys and trackpads anyways?  What are phone manufacturers afraid of, it’s like there is a mass hysteria about having buttons on your phone.  That somehow it’s unattractive; it’s old fashioned; it’s a sign that you are not good enough at touch screen technology.  What a lot of hogwash.  

Let me tell you the ways I use the buttons and keys and trakpad on my blackberry

The Bold 9900 has qwerty keyboard, above the key board from left to right: Send key, Menu key, Trackpad, Escape key, end key.  There is also a right convenience key on the right side and a screen lock key on the top.  Sometimes people refer to these as single function keys .

The Keyboard

We all know that the keyboard is used for entering text when in a text field.  On the blackberry whenever you are not in a text field the keyboard usually has other very usefull functions.

1)   When typing if you want a capital letter you just need to hold the key down a little longer and it is capitalized

2)   When selecting a symbol or smiley face there is always a letter attached and you can choose symbol either by selecting with the trackpad or by typing the letter.

3)   When you double space in normal text it will put a period

When you are not in a text field, the keyboard has many other uses.  My favorite is the ability to launch applications by typing one letter when you are on the home screen.  Many people are not even aware of this capability because it is not a default.  For some reason, when OS 6 was released, RIM felt that the default should be the universal search (Universal search is all the rage don’t cha know).  I find this to be a strange choice, while universal search is a nice feature I may use it once in a month, while applications shortcuts I use several hundred times a day. 

 

To use the home screen keyboard shortcuts, you have to set the option. From the home screen, click the blackberry button and choose options.  At the top of the home screen preference page change  Launch by Typing from Universal Search to Application Shortcuts. 

There are keyboard short cuts for most of the main apps. I keep a notecard for each app with the shortcuts listed as I sometimes forget them. Below is a picture of my notecards.

Single Function Keys

While called single function keys, most of them do multiple functions as part of the blackberry OS and there are lots of great apps for adding even more functionality to these keys.   I use the following apps: Quicklaunch, DeKlikken and Versatool.  Unless otherwise noted, the features are built into blackberry. 

The Send Key

-          Answers an incoming call

-          From most places, takes you to the phone app

-          If you are in a contact, it will start a call to that contact

-          If your cursor is over a phone number in most apps, it will call the number

-          If your cursor is over a name in an email you received, it will call the named person if they are in your contact list

The Menu Key

-          Opens the context menu

-          Press and hold, pulls up the application switcher (I use this a lot)

-          When a context menu is open, you can type the first letter of any of the commands and you will go directly to next commend starting with that letter.  This is very handy with some of the longer menus

The Escape Key – A real single function button

-          Moves back a screen

The End/Power key

-          Hold until BB turns off

-          Ends a call

-          Returns to the home screen (A handy feature as you can click this once from anywhere, it takes you back to the home screen and then you can launch or go to many of the apps with the 1 letter shortcut talked about above)

-          Press and short hold launches an app (versatool)

-          Double press to launch an app (versatool)

Convenience Key

-          Click to launch app

-          Double Click to launch app (QuickLaunch)

-          In camera it still takes a picture

Media keys

-          Volume up, Volume down, mute

-          Double click any of them to launch an app (DeKlikken)

-          I have double clicking the mute button to pull up the sound profile

Lock screen button – A real single function button

-          Push to lock or unlock

I also use Quicklaunch to increase my keyboard shortcut capabilities.  I've set all the same single letter shortcuts for quicklaunch as for the desktop, otherwise I would just get confused. And added 2 letter shortcuts for other apps.  I try to make them obvious like CL for clock.

The trackpad

I just don’t understand why this device is not on every phone and tablet made.  The trackpad on my  blackberry is the most important interface on my phone, more important than the buttons and keyboard and a lot more important than the double touch capability of my screen.  With the trackpad I can quickly, easily and accurately select anything I can see on my screen.  The same is not true if I try to select things on the screen with my finger or thumb.  Just watch a touchscreen only phone user browsing the web.   When they want to select a link, they will usually use one of the following techniques 1) become very focussed as they slowly try to finesse the magic of touching something that is hidden behind their thumb, often cursing and going back to try again or 2) expending to font 72 so they can accurately select what they want the first time.  None of this is necessary with a trackpad, a tiny movement on the thumb, a click and voila!  You still have lots of time to chuckle at your friend trying to do that on his iPhone.

Conclusion 

At first, the plethora of shortcuts may seem overwhelming to some who are just starting out with a blackberry.  But here's the thing, you dont have to remember it all, just those you use a lot.  Once you start using shortcuts you will wonder how you ever managed without them.

I would suggest that you do start with the home screen shortcuts and there are only about 4 you need to remember

M for mail
A for Address book
B for browser
L for Calendar

Inside apps just remember B and T for top and bottom.

Have fun with your blackberry and if you do discover a shortcut I did not mention here or a new use for any of your blackberry buttons, let me know.