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Put Your PDA To Use: Six Tech Tools For A Healthier You

Forget going to the weight room or penciling calories into a food journal.

Tons of new technologies have been designed to help you get fit fast and conveniently. Check out these tech-savvy tools to aid in physical fitness.

Wi-Fi Scale
The advanced Withings scale, which measures weight and body fat, automatically sends your daily statistics to your phone or computer. You can then monitor your weight over time, catch patterns and set goals. The scale allows multiple users, so the whole family can lose weight together.

It might look like a run-of-the-mill bathroom scale, but the Withings scale is WiFi-enabled to track your weight directly on your computer.

Tweet What You Eat
While there are many food journal sites out there, Tweet What You Eat should particularly please the health-minded nerd in all of us.

The system syncs with your Twitter account so that you can send it messages throughout the day about your eating habits.

It also lets you log your weight and tallies daily caloric totals. SMSenabled Twitter lets you record your weight via text message, so you can keep up with your journal from anywhere – at a restaurant, on the street or in your kitchen.

While your food log can be kept private, many users find the public atmosphere of Twitter particularly motivating.

Body Bugg
Finally – a device that calculates exactly how many calories you burn in a day. Worn on an arm band 24/7, it provides accurate and detailed information about caloric expenditure and heart rate.

While it will track calories burned during exercise, the device is especially useful for learning how much daily activities – like house cleaning or playing with your kids – actually burn calories.

Any dieter knows that weight loss is a matter of calories in and calories out. The Body Bugg has calories out covered.

Wii Fit
While you might not have played a video game since you were a kid, Wii Fit is designed for users of all ages and health levels. The console guides you through all fitness needs, from cardio to strength training to yoga.

It even lets you chart your progress by calculating activity levels and body mass index. Cheaper than a gym subscription and certainly more fun, a Wii Fit in your living room leaves no excuse not to exercise.

Mobile Apps
There are hundreds of apps out there to help you reach your fitness goals.

Some of our favorites include Lose It!, which helps you track your daily calories and exercise; Fitness, a comprehensive database of exercise tips and videos; and iTreadmill, which turns your iPhone into a pedometer. Since you already carry mobile devices everywhere, apps might be the most convenient way to get healthy.

Tech Experts Launches New Website, Support Portal

We’re excited to announce our new website, which has been under development for several months. The new site is much more intuitive and easier to navigate.

Links to our most-used features – connecting to Remote Support and our Tech Experts Support Portal – are now at the top of the page. You’ll also find links to our social media sites such as FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

We’re in the process of consolidating all of our technical support resources, such as email setup guides, web hosting control panel instructions, and support ticket creation and review functions into one easy to use support portal: http://www.MyTechExperts.com.

Your feedback is very important to us! If you have the opportunity to review the site, please let us know your thoughts by sending an email to info@MyTechExperts.com.

It’s Severe Weather Season… Do You Have A Disaster Plan?

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

Perhaps it’s just me, but this spring has been one of the worst I can remember in terms of severe weather. The flooding and tornadoes we’re seeing around the country should serve as a wake-up call for small business owners to review their business continuity plan.

A disaster recovery plan prepares a business to deal with disaster scenarios such as fi res or tornadoes that disrupt the business’s operations.

Although larger companies create such plans as a standard operating procedure, small businesses tend not to do this type of planning.

In fact, according to Symantec’s 2011 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey, only 50% of small businesses have a plan in place for a disaster or data loss.

Your disaster plan serves two purposes. First, the plan should limit the financial impact a manmade or natural disaster has on your company.

Second, the plan should establish the steps you will take to begin operating again quickly following a disaster. Developing the plan and making employees aware of it helps protect your business and mitigate risk.

Plans should name specific employees that will play key roles in the event of a disaster, and identify critical assignments that each employee must complete in a disaster scenario.

Finally, the plan should focus on keeping your company’s irreplaceable data safe. That data includes customer information, email correspondence, sales information and accounting and financial records.

Most businesses our size don’t have the resources to implement redundant office locations, but the plan should include a strategy operating at an alternate location.

The resources needed to resume operations within 24 hours of a disaster may differ from those needed to resume operations within three to four days. The plan should call for the minimum set of resources possible to meet the established targets.

We’ve put together in a free report that will help guide you through the planning process – from assessing the risks to setting up in a new location. The report is free – simply call the office at (734) 457-5000, or email info@MyTechExperts.com for your copy.

Five Microsoft Office Add-ins Help Improve Productivity

If your company does any type of word processing, data spreadsheets, or even use email then you probably know the benefits of having Microsoft Office.

Did you know that you can enhance your experience by using third party add-ins? An add-in is a mini program which runs in conjunction with a web browser or other application that enhances the functionality of that program.

Here is a list of add-ins for the Microsoft Office Suite. Keep reading to learn about some of the add-ins available to make your everyday tasks easier!

Duplicates Remover for Microsoft Outlook
Duplicates Remover is a powerful and flexible plug-in for Microsoft Outlook intended for the search and deletion of duplicated items in Microsoft Outlook folders.

Duplicates Remover can search in single folders as well as different folders for any duplicates. Duplicated items can then be set to automatically be copied or moved to another folder of your choice, marked with a flag letting you know that item already exists somewhere in another folder, or simply deleted.

Microsoft Mathematics Add-In for Word and OneNote
Microsoft Mathematics Add-in for Word and OneNote makes it easy to plot graphs in 2D and 3D, calculate numerical results, solve equations or inequalities, and simplify algebraic expressions in your Word documents and OneNote notebooks.

Microsoft Mathematics Add-in can add a little extra help when planning your budget for next year, or simply create great visuals using its graphing feature.

SendLater for Microsoft Outlook
SendLater is an easy-to-use and convenient email scheduler with a recurring email option. It allows you to schedule automatic email, follow up and handle your email correspondence in a timely manner even if you are away from your computer.

It also allows you to send a delayed group message as a single email to all recipients or use the “Send personally” feature to conceal any information about other recipients of the same group message.

In this case the recipient will only see his/her name and address in the To, CC or BCC fields, as if the message has been sent to the recipient personally.

Ultimate Add-in for Microsoft Excel
The ultimate Add-in for Microsoft Excel includes a general collection of over 90 different utilities and more than 30 custom written functions to help make life with Excel a little easier. Ultimate Add-in will allow you to customize the menu to bring all of the menu settings in one place to easily show/hide the items you want.

Ultimate Add-in can also optimize your workbooks, rebuilding the whole data spreadsheets and saving the components to a series of files and reloading them into a blank sheet. Serious file space can be saved by using this utility.

Attachments Forget Reminder for Microsoft Outlook
Attachments Forget Reminder is a powerful Microsoft Office Outlook Add-In. It scans each outgoing email and if it finds any of the specified key phrases (e.g., “see attachment” or “in the attached file”).

If no file is attached to the message, the program will give out a notification. It then asks you if you meant to attach a fi le before sending the email, giving you a chance to insert the attachment. The add-in works with Plain Text, RTF, or HTML based email formats.

There is many more add-ins that you can install to improve functionality within the Office suite programs, these are just some of the few I like.

Go ahead and search online for yourself and see if you can find some good add-ins that makes your job simpler!

Windows Updates… What, When, Why?

Windows Update can be confusing. Microsoft throws a lot of stuff at you, often with little information.

And somehow you have to figure out what you really need, what you might like and what Microsoft wants you to have for their own purposes.

It doesn’t help that most of the updates have totally useless names. Without looking it up, can you tell me why you may or may not need Windows Vista (KB950124)? I can’t, either.

Unfortunately, if you don’t keep up with the patches and security fixes for your version of windows, you run the risk of not only being more vulnerable to a malware attack.

Hackers are always looking for security holes in operating systems and application software to gain access to your computer.

There are many types of updates that can be available for your server or workstation and in most – but not all – cases you will want to install them.

A lot of updates come from Microsoft. Another source is hardware providers that may have made some of the hardware in your computer (like video cards, sound cards, network interface cards, Etc.)

Updates can come from other software that you install to do your work or make your computer run better (like Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash).

The updates that come from Microsoft generally offer more features to a product installed on your computer such as Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, or even Windows itself.

Windows Update also delivers very important patches that correct issues with the operating system and could potentially allow hackers access to your fi les or anything accessible on your computer.

This can include devices that are connected to your computer such as your router, printers, external hard drives, network attached storage, etc. This can be a serious security risk if your computer is on a network domain.

Gaining access to a user’s computer that has administrative rights to various aspects of the network or server would allow hackers to do much more damage than on a PC you use at home.

In a business setting it is an absolute necessity that you keep your server/workstations up to date with all security patches that are appropriate to your environment.

Just as it is very important to keep your operating system up to date, it is also very important that you keep your programs up to date.

One of the most abused programs in regards to gaining access to users’ computers is Adobe Flash and Reader.

These programs are patched regularly to prevent attacks. Since Flash is used on many websites, and Reader is used for many business documents, you almost certainly have them on your computer.

Recently, Adobe announced a vulnerability discovered within its Flash software that allowed hackers to connect remotely to your computer and use Flash to control every aspect of your computer.

This has since been patched (as long as you updated your Flash player), but it just goes to show how easily your computer can be compromised if you do not keep it up to date.

There are times that you may not want to update your software. One example, and there are many, might be your video card drivers.

You may not want to install this update unless you have a specific need.

Sometimes, updates of these type can cause hardware to malfunction and there are times where the update is designed to fix a specific problem. If you don’t have the problem the update fixes, you probably wouldn’t install that update.

If you have any questions, feel free to call a tech today at 734-457-5000.

Feature article By Tech Experts Staff for Tech Experts

 

Twitter 101: A Beginner’s Guide To Tweeting Responsibly

Thanks to Charlie Sheen, everyone is talking about Twitter. Whether you love him or hate him, you have to admire his uncanny social networking skills and ability to generate some buzz.

In a nutshell, Twitter is a social media oriented microblogging site. A typical Twitter update – known as a “tweet” – might provide a quick update on what you’re doing or request help with a problem. All in 140 characters or less.

That’s “micro-blogging.” You can send updates from your PC, a cell phone, PDAs, tablets. How can Twitter be useful and how to sign up?

Twitter for fun and family
To use Twitter in your personal life…Keep your friends and family updated on your life when you don’t have the time or inclination to call or e-mail. You might tweet, “We arrived home safely from our trip” or “the car’s running again. It was just a fuse.”

Real life tweet: A passenger on a plane that skidded off a Denver runway last winter used his cell phone to tweet about the event moments after it occurred.

His friends never had to worry about his safety, because they got his tweet and learned that he was unharmed before the incident was reported in the media.

Arrange social activities, even at the last minute. Rather than place dozens of calls to find someone who is free, send out a single tweet. This tweet might read, “I’m going fishing. Anyone want to join me?”

Real life tweet: Basketball Star Shaquille O’Neal used Twitter to inform his friends and fans that he was sitting down to dinner alone in Phoenix. A pair of local basketball fans drove to the diner and hung out with him.

Solicit opinions, advice or assistance on short notice. You could tweet, “Can anyone suggest a good place for dinner in Albany?” or “My car broke down in Portland. Can anyone recommend a good mechanic?”

Twitter for business
To use Twitter in your professional life… Keep colleagues and clients up-to-date about schedules and plans. You could tweet, “Any customer expecting a service call today will receive one by 5:00 p.m. despite the snow” or “My flight was delayed. Can someone stand in for me at this afternoon’s meeting?”

Search for tweets about your company, industry, or products written by other Twitter users, and then provide fast feedback.

A plumber might offer responses to plumbing-related questions to build goodwill with customers. A manufacturer might respond to a complaint about a product with troubleshooting tips, turning negative buzz about the company’s customer service.

For example, cable company Comcast has a customer service employee monitor Twitter for mentions of Comcast and respond quickly.

The website TweetBeep (http://tweetbeep.com) and Twitter’s own search page (http://search.twitter.com) can help find relevant tweets.

Show clients and potential clients the person behind the business. Customers are more likely to trust you if they believe that they know you and like you as a person.

To build this human connection, tweet about your hobbies, your charitable work, or your company’s softball game, in addition to your business and products.

How to sign up
Twitter is easy to use. Visit www.twitter.com, click “Get Started-Join!” and follow the simple directions. E-mail a link to your twitter web page to keep friends, family, colleagues and clients posted on your life or business.

You can find people to follow by clicking on “Find people” from your Twitter home page.

Warning: Click “setting” then check the box by “Protect my updates” on your Twitter account page if you want to maintain control over who reads your tweets.

Leave this unchecked only if you do not expect to share sensitive information and would like to reach strangers as well as friends.

Always be careful. If you are going to be out of town for a few weeks, you may not want to tweet about that everyone can read your posts.

You can also choose to receive tweets from individuals on your cell phone. Though Twitter is free, your service provider may charge you when you send or receive messages from your phone depending on your plan.

Smart Social Media Skills Can Improve Sales Efforts

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

The old saying goes, “Information is power.” In sales, that’s more true than ever. Fortunately, the Internet has made researching prospective clients and preparing for your next sales appointment quick and easy.

When preparing for a sales call, you can browse to a prospect’s website to research their business, search for other key decision makers, and review recent company news.

Search engines can help you find additional information, such as recent hires, number of employees, and general information about the prospect’s industry. But, Internet searches only go so far. As more companies take advantage of social media, researching prospects on social media sites is a great way to learn more about your prospect.

Facebook
FaceBook (www.fb.com) is the undisputed king of social media. More than a half-billion people have FaceBook accounts, and fifty percent of FaceBook’s active users log in every day.

If you’re selling, there’s a good chance your prospect’s company (and potential buyer) have FaceBook pages where you’ll find a wealth of information about their business.

People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on FaceBook – if you’re not actively using FaceBook to prospect (and market your company), you’re definitely missing some sales.

Twitter
Awareness of Twitter (www.twitter.com) has exploded from 5% of Americans in 2008 to 87% in 2010, and business use has never been higher.

Twitter’s search function allows you to find mentions of your potential client’s company and key decision makers, and the site’s people search feature helps you find users who list your prospect in their bio.

Following these Twitter accounts can help you stay abreast of the latest company news and help you gather deeper insights into what your prospect is working on and what it important to them.

Social networks
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) remains the number one business to business social network, where professionals sign up to connect with other business people and industry veterans.

Reviewing a company’s LinkedIn profile can tell you about other employees that work for your prospect, and how you might be connected to them.

You’ll also find information that will help you relate to your prospect – where they went to school, other positions they’ve held, and even hobbies they enjoy.

News alerts
You’re already searching a prospects company name, buyers’ names, and industry information before you go on your first sales appointment, so staying on top of updated prospect information will give you the leg up on winning business long term.

All of the popular search engines offer a free news alert service (www.google.com/alerts, www.bing.com/news, alerts.yahoo.com) that will send updated web and news content to your Inbox.

It’s also a good idea to set up alerts on your prospect’s competitors, executives and key decision makers.

These updates can give you additional reasons to contact prospects and clients, and give you additional insight into what is happening behind the scenes.

Bringing it all together
Web based CRM sites such as SalesForce (www.salesforce.com) will help you keep track of multiple prospects, deadlines and milestones.

SalesForce includes direct links to both FaceBook and Twitter to help you monitor clients and prospects in real time.

Be sure to build out your database to track both business and personal data about your prospects and decision makers. The wealth of information available on the Internet makes it easy for a sales professional (or company owner) to go into a call well prepared.

The best things? Since not all salespeople take the time to leverage web research and social media tools, doing your homework can help you set yourself apart from the competition and improve your sales performance.

How To Ensure A Safe And Virus-free Internet Experience

Visiting websites like Facebook, Ebay, or Youtube at work may keep you busy while there’s “nothing to do.” However, if your computer system isn’t properly protected, you run the risk of a virus or malware infection.

We’ve put together some of our best tips in this “safe browsing habits” article. Following these general guidelines can help protect you against Internet based threats.

One of the dangers faced by users when they browse the Internet is a hacker or infected computer accessing the browser’s cookies. Cookies are small text files saved on the computer by the server of the page the user is visiting.

The information cookies contain is usually related to the page being visited, which can include user names and passwords, browsing preferences, etc.

Java Applets and JavaScripts can also put users at risk. Although the majority of these programs that are run on the user’s computer at the request of the server are harmless, they can be designed to steal system information and send it to a malicious user.

Another threat that is becoming one of the most dangerous threats on the Internet is phishing. This technique involves tricking users into thinking that are visiting a legitimate web page, when they are actually visiting a malicious page.

This technique is particularly dangerous when the malicious page simulates an online banking page. Web pages that perfectly imitate the appearance and functions of well-known banking entities are becoming increasingly common-place on the Internet and entice users into entering personal data that will fall directly in the hands of unscrupulous cyber criminals.

But that’s not all. There are also viruses that are capable of getting into computers when users browse the Internet. To do this, they usually exploit vulnerabilities that allow them to install themselves on computers without the user realizing.

The malicious code that have the capacity to do this include many Trojans designed to steal confidential information from affected computers.

Online banking
When making transactions on the Internet, check that the process is carried out through a secure server. Several characteristics identify these types of servers. One of these is the address that appears in the address bar in the browser, which starts with https://.

What’s more, a padlock or key icon will appear in the browser window. If the padlock is closed or the key is complete (not broken), the server is secure.

Disable cookies
Another recommendation is to disable the cookies from the toolbar in the browser you are using. Although they must be enabled in order to access some web pages, they can be enabled temporarily.

Even though it may be tiresome enabling and disabling the cookies, it can prevent a lot of serious problems.

Double check the URL
To avoid falling victim to phishing scams, make sure that the page you are visiting is legitimate. To do this, copy the URL of the website you want to visit and paste it in the address bar of the browser. It is also advisable to identify and monitor the Java Applets and JavaScripts on the system to avoid any nasty surprises.

Raise your security level
Raise the security zone in the browser to ‘medium’ or ‘high.’ This can be done from the toolbar in the browser you are using.

Anti-virus is key
Finally, make sure that you have a reliable antivirus installed, which is updated at least daily. This will prevent malicious code from slipping into your computer while you are browsing the Internet.

The Benefits Of Using The Current Version of Windows

With all the different versions of Windows out there, how do you know what one will work best for you, and why?

The answer, in most cases, is the most current version of Windows is the one you should be using. In general the most current version of Windows (in this case Windows 7) will offer the greatest benefits for your money.

Security
One of the many benefits to having a current operating system is the security features. When you’re up to date, you are far less vulnerable to viruses and malware.

Windows XP is still one of the most widely used operating systems.The problem with it is that there are so many viruses and malware developed for it that it is much more vulnerable than Windows Vista or Windows 7.

One security feature that makes Vista and Windows 7 more secure than Windows XP is the fact that they both have a two way firewall built into the operating system.

This means that if a virus was to get into the system (and the firewall was still functioning properly) the outbound firewall would catch outbound communications from the virus to whatever it is transmitting to.

Windows XP only has inbound firewalls which helps to stop incoming connections, but does nothing once a virus, malware or other attacker has gained access to the computer system.

This is likely the biggest advantage security wise for the newer operating systems.

Increased productivity
As far as productivity goes there may be instances that require a user to stick with an older operating system due to software compatibility issues. These issues in most cases are few and far between.

The reason this is the case is due to compatibility features within Windows 7 and Vista that allow a user to set a program to run in “Compatibility Mode.”

Running a program in compatibility mode allows a user to run programs that were designed to be run in older operating systems.

This feature will allow programs that were designed to run on operating systems as old as Windows 95 to run in the current version of Windows.

While compatibility mode will work in most cases, it isn’t guaranteed. Always work with your line of business application company to keep your software updated.

Remember the importance of maintaining support for any specialty software you use.

Updated applications
One final reason to use the most current Operating System is the ability to run newer applications and hardware that were not previously supported in older operating systems.

If your computer is older, it might not have the horsepower necessary to run the most current version of Windows. In that case, it is may be more beneficial to upgrade the PC.

If you’re interested in upgrading, we can check your current systems for memory and processing power, looking forward toward an operating system upgrade.

Remember, an up to date system lets you be more productive, have better security over your important data, and increase your profitability by decreasing downtime due to failing hardware, viruses and malware.

Feature article By Tech Experts Staff for Tech Experts

Simple Tips To Keep You Out Of Computer Trouble

As you can imagine, we see a lot of computer and network issues . Sometimes, they’re pretty difficult to diagnose and repair, but in some cases, a simple fix is all you need. Here are some tips you can refer to the next time your computer goes a little crazy, and some advice to keep you out of trouble.

Reboot!
Nine times out of ten, rebooting your computer and connected equipment will solve the problem you’re having.

Do a full restart, which means go to your Start menu, shut down the computer, and power down your peripherals and computer. Then, restart it fresh.

We know what you did
A good computer consultant can tell if you’ve been bad or good on your computer, and usually pretty quickly. Tell us what you really did right before the computer crashed – this will save time and aggravation.

Your consultant will figure it out eventually – why not make the repair quicker?

There is no free lunch
Downloading free music, movies and games from the Internet can open holes in the security system of your computer, making it easy for other people to access your files.

Be safe… Only use legitimate sites like iTunes and Netflix for your downloads.

Use strong passwords
We walk a fine line in recommending passwords. If they’re really easy to remember, that means they’re also really easy to guess. If we make the password very hard to guess, it’s also going to be very hard to remember.

Here’s a suggestion: Create a “main” password which you then modify for each site you use. A good main password would consist of numbers and letters (but not your birth date!).

Try using your first dog’s name combined with the address of the first house you lived in, and then add to the password for each site. For example, buffy1944 could be a good base password. Then, you’d add AMZ at the end for your login to Amazon.com – buffy1944AMZ, EBY at the end for your eBay account, etc.

Update your antivirus
Hackers don’t care that you’re too busy to renew your antivirus and anti-spyware software – in fact, they hope you don’t! Set your software to update at least once a day and run a full system scan at least once a week.This is also a good time to schedule system maintenance tasks, like your system defrag.

Public wi-fi is public
If you don’t have an urgent need to check your online banking or private e-mail at the coffee house, don’t do it. While you’re on a public network, even if it is encrypted, a nearby hacker can capture your passwords and other personal information