Windows 7 has many features that make it a great improvement over earlier systems. However, like most things, if you are unaware of all these features you could be missing out.

By mastering a few simple tricks, you can get the most out of Windows 7.

• If you would like to copy images from your computer to a CD or DVD it’s now much simpler with Windows 7. Double-click the ISO image that you would like to burn and choose the drive that has your blank disc in it. After selecting the “burn” option all you need to do is wait!

• Easily find and repair problems. If your operating system is acting oddly, simply click the “Control Panel” option. After that, you can select “troubleshooting” to access a series of wizards which will take care of commonplace operating problems. This includes cleaning up systems that are slowed by too much adware and other clutter.

• What if you have younger members of the household who insist upon installing cumbersome software onto your computer? Install an excessive amount of this software, and your computer will become a sluggish mess. Fortunately, Windows 7 comes with the AppLocker feature. This feature enables you to run and install only programs with your pre-approval. For instance, you can tell AppLocker to only run programs created by reputable companies such as Microsoft. If your kids endeavor to install a program from an unknown publisher, AppLocker will stop it.

• One great feature for people who work remotely is its power efficiency service. It’s easy to get details about the quantity of power your laptop is using, which is often important if you’re working on a project and are far from a power source.

It’s time to put a popular misconception to rest: “isn’t WordPress merely a blogging platform?” Although this used to be the case, according to an article by Tech Crunch, about 22% of newly published websites are created on WordPress. What’s more impressive, one of the most popular publishers is using WordPress as their platform.

Here are 7 things you should know about WordPress:

1. With WordPress there is no need to rebuild your pages every time you wish to update your site. Updating your content is quick and simple, as WordPress has dynamic page generation.
2. You can get a subdomain for free! If you register with WordPress to get a free site, you can easily name your free subdomain like this: www.yourname.wordpress.org.
3. If you have your own domain and hosting account, WordPress can be installed in minutes (WordPress calls it their ‘famous 5-minute install’).  No coding skills needed.
4. If you do own your own domain there are a few minimum requirements to run WordPress. You have to make sure you have the appropriate and compliant versions of PHP and MySQL. This will ensure that you can receive reliable WordPress support if required.
5. To make your site look good, there is an considerable selection of templates, called “themes”, available on the internet. Some are free, while others aren’t. Regardless, using these it is possible to easily and quickly customize your site the way you like.
6. WordPress offers centralized management for all your pages, posts, multimedia assets, and reader comments. It’s also very simple to manage users and user profiles.
7. WordPress encourages e-commerce. There’s an plethora of plugins that have already been created that allow you to accept payments, promote, and more on your website. The easy plugin search keeps these options at your fingertips.

We always read about the most popular gadgets on the market. But for every technology that changes our lives you will find something that flops. It’s hard to judge what the general public will take a fancy too, so companies take a risk every time they release something. Here we explore several technologies that fall outside of the “took flight” category.

Famous tech failures

• Apple TV: This device gives users the power to purchase entertainment from iTunes then stream it to the device of their choice. Good idea? Most likely, if it wasn’t so limited to iTunes. 

• Sony Mylo: You might not recall the Mylo. That’s because it came and went without eliciting much response from consumers. This Wi-Fi-enabled mobile device permitted consumers to connect to the Internet, send e-mail, and hold online chats. In addition, it came with Skype for free Internet calls. Unfortunately for Sony, the iPhone and its enormous app store simply overwhelmed the Mylo.

The Segway peters out

• Segway PT: The Segway PT scooter hasn’t exactly been a flop. Nevertheless, it never caught on in the way its manufacturers expected. This two-wheeled transportation machine was said to be a must-have for commuters traveling to work and for family members taking short trips to their local supermarket. Unfortunately, the scooter makes people look kind of silly when they are riding it. Maybe this is the reason the device hasn’t develop into a mainstream replacement for cars.

The CueCat doesn’t purr

• CueCat: The CueCat was a digital barcode reader manufactured by Digital Convergence Corporation. In the shape of a cat, this device allowed the user to scan a bar code and be instantly guided to a company’s website. This did not go over well, but it may have paved the way for the now popular QR code.

If you use Microsoft Outlook on a regular basis, odds are that you most likely take it for granted. Outlook has been around for many years, helping us manage our email and our schedules. It may seem uncomplicated, but it is in fact a very dynamic and robust program. To be able to make the most of your experience with Outlook, let’s take a look at some of its unknown features.  Below we’ve discussed only 3 of the often-overlooked features that help you work more efficiently.

Eliminate the Clutter

You probably have “Conversation View” switched on in Outlook already.  This view helps keep conversations neatly arranged into one thread. You can find the desired email without having to search through days of backlogged emails. There is a possible downfall to this view however. More recent conversations can become very messy with repetitive quoted text. Turning off this quoted text is very simply with Outlook.  Right-click the conversation thread and choose “Clean Up Conversation.” All the unnecessary repeat copies will now be eradicated from the individual emails in the conversation thread.

Say it in a Picture

Using screenshots in your emails is always a great way to successfully help express your message, especially for IT support problems. Inserting a screenshot into your email is very easy with Outlook.  All you have to do is click the “Insert” tab and then select the “Screenshot” option. From here, Outlook will create images of all the windows open on your desktop.  Choose the correct one and it will be inserted into your email.

Take Out the Trash

Did you know that all of those old emails in your trash folder are taking up lots of precious space? It can be easy to forget to empty our email trash. Outlook has made that simple too! Select the “File” tab and then select “Options.” Go to the “Advanced” section and look for the “Start” and “Exit” options. By checking the box after “Empty Deleted Items” when exiting Outlook, this will enable Outlook to automatically get rid of your trash folder every time you exit the program.

It is easy to fall into the misguided idea that you already have enough safeguards in position to protect your small business. You probably stay up to date with the latest antivirus software, but is that sufficient? You also probably believe that since you’re not really a huge corporation, you don’t have to worry about cyber criminals hacking into your system. But here’s the unlucky reality: cyber criminals have upped their game and are beginning to target small businesses increasingly more. Let’s take a closer look to  give you a better understanding of the level of danger your business may be under.

Small firms: low-hanging fruit

The truth is, hackers have realized that small businesses are easier targets, and are increasingly preying upon them. They are able to infiltrate their systems at a considerably faster rate, and with a better percentage of success as well. This means a cyber criminal can assault multiple targets in the time it would take them to lay siege to a better-guarded system with a higher level of data security. How can it be worth their while to steal from a mom and pop operation? In today’s modern world, practically every business makes use of digital payment processing methods. When your customers pay using a credit card, this data must run through your system to be validated. This represents a goldmine of data for hackers, as they can lift this data without being noticed. With your customers’ credit card numbers, addresses and names, they are able to make counterfeit charges on their accounts.

How hackers gain access to your data

Even though you most likely have systems in place to safeguard your data, hackers will make use of several points of entry, so firewalls alone is probably not enough. Destructive email attachments are one of the biggest offenders. These attachments can leave your system wide open for data mining. This year alone in the first quarter, 6 million malware programs were found. Aside from these more high-tech tactics, cyber criminals also use low-tech means to steal information. Phone calls or even personal visits by someone pretending to be a network administrator or security firm can be harmful. We all hope our workers are smart enough not to fall for an obvious phishing scam, but it only takes one slip up to open yourself up for attack.

The buck stops with you

Many people assume that since credit card companies are usually accountable for any deceptive charges that occur from a hacking event, that data security isn’t crucial. While this may be true for a consumer, for a business owner the result may be very different. Consumers will hold you accountable personally should their information be stolen. Damage control after an attack can cost a company thousands of dollars and in some cases a single attack can spell the end of business in general.

An ounce of prevention…

Taking extra precautions when it comes to your business’ data security is a very wise move. Continue to update your programs and passwords on a regular basis. Teach your employees good security practices like setting up strong passwords and instructing them to never give out login information or open suspicious emails. Hiring an outside consultant is another great way to ensure your clients’ information. These measures not only give you peace of mind, they tell your clients that you care about keeping them safe.

Our last blog post looked into the reasons why developing a vibrant business culture is crucial for your brand. The positive effects of a healthy culture are extensive, while the consequence of letting the culture of your company decay can be very damaging indeed. In our earlier post, we touched on ways to measure the cultural health of your organization, but just how do you enrich that culture if needed?

If you have determined that the culture of your company needs some tweaking or refreshing, there are several questions you will want to consider first:

• What traits would you like your company’s environment to embody? Originality, respectfulness, acceptance, fun, etc.
• What are the primary values or focus of your company? How can you make that prominent in the culture?
• Who manages the flow of information? How and what’s distributed to the employees?
• How do you reward or inspire employees now, and how would you like to in the future?
• Does everyone feel heard in the company? Do people feel free to voice their ideas and give their opinions?

More questions than solutions may arise, so brainstorming with your colleagues is a good approach to finding creative answers. Below are a few suggestions to start with:

Suggestion/Thought box – This is an easy way to allow people to share opinions regarding the current events within the company. The employee could elect to make the suggestion anonymous or not, and any suggestions or concerns could be addressed in monthly company gatherings.

Empower employees – Let your staff make decisions. Treat your staff as peers; allow them to have a say and listen to their suggestions. Also be a transparent leader. Don’t just notify your employees when things are great, but also make them aware tactfully when things aren’t going very well.

Flexible hours – You hired your staff because you have confidence in them to do their job. Permitting them to have fairly flexible hours will show you trust them to get their work done well and on time. The respect you give them will be reflected in the respect they give you.

Dress code – Today it is unusual that individuals are required to wear suits and ties regularly.  Giving employees freedom to express themselves with their clothing is a simple strategy to make them feel accepted for who they are. To take this one step further, consider themed days: silly hat day, bright clothing day, 80’s day, etc. It’s astounding how important self-expression can be.

Celebrate – A business is composed of the people in it, so celebrate together. A monthly movie day, a catered lunch, or lunchtime board game days are just a few ways you can get your staff together to celebrate.

Below is a list of things that real companies have done to incorporate some fun to their culture:

• Spontaneous Nerf gun wars
• Painting inspirational quotes on the walls
• Hitting a loud gong when there is a success to let the whole company know
• Foosball tournaments
• Lunchtime Yoga
• Lunchtime Crafting Club
• Monday Mad Libs, whoever wishes to contribute, does, and then the completed Mad Lib is emailed to the company

Often, in business, concentrating on the strategy of the company is the main objective.
Is that because it is the most important aspect to focus on? Many businesses think so, but exclusively focusing on strategy can lead a company into stagnation. People make up a company and they collectively make the culture of the company. Culture does not just impact the employees in your office, it affects your brand, marketing, and how the public in general views your business. Without a healthy thriving culture a brand has little possibility of long-term success.  When we look at brands like Apple, Google, or Starbucks we not only recognize the brand, but we associate a number of feelings and thoughts about these companies. This is mostly due to the culture of these companies.

Why Culture is so Important

Giving your employees a feeling of ownership over their jobs makes them feel empowered, and empowerment encourages innovative thinking. This all starts with a healthy workplace culture. If people feel invisible or stifled in their work place, they’ll do the bare minimum required of them. It’s human nature to want to feel like we are part of something and that we have some control over our lives. Don’t forget that your brand is comprised of the individuals in your company. So nurturing a good company culture is not just the responsibility of the HR department, but of everyone, from the CEO to the janitor.

If you are not yet convinced, here are a couple of the obvious benefits of fostering a healthy culture.

• Focus – Keeping employees focused on the same goal helps a company run with efficiency. Getting people to care about the goal comes with having a healthy focus. If your employees feel like they are an important part of attaining that goal they’ll be more likely to push themselves. When individuals feel like they have no impact on the main goal, they loose focus, and can become cynical.

• Cohesion – Healthy culture can bring about strong communication in good and bad times. In a place where there is unhealthy culture people may frequently resent being told what to do because they don’t feel their thoughts are listened to or appreciated. When a problem arises they may avoid pointing it out because they fear backlash.

• Motivation – It’s simple; motivated people accomplish more. This may seem apparent, but in companies in which the culture is suffering, productivity may also suffer.

Measuring the Cultural Health of Your Company

This can be a difficult step but ought to be assessed a few times a year. One of the primary steps is to examine how people are managed, how jobs are given out, and do people have some say in what they are doing? Of course you may find a few people who’ll never be happy, but if the general opinion is negative, start considering making a few changes for the healthy of your business. Check back soon for a few tips on transforming your company’s culture for the better.

Chances are you started your company because you love what you do. You opened your doors because you have a solid product that you believe in.  You probably did not start a business because your paperwork abilities were unmatched.  Paperwork is an essential and necessary evil for any business owner and accurate invoicing cannot be ignored. We all need cash flow to keep our businesses afloat, so using a good invoicing system can help us keep cash in the bank and our customers happy!

Invoicing help online

Using a web-based invoicing service is a possible option for business owners who want a quicker, more reliable way, and often-automatic means to invoice their customers. There are a vast number of available online options to choose from that can take that monotonous task of paperwork off your plate. Below we’ll take a look at just 3 of the solutions out there:

A free but powerful invoicing service

BillingBoss has a big advantage: It’s free. This online tool allows you to set up automatic invoicing of repeat customers and send out once-off invoices to those customers who aren’t regular. Do not be deceived because this service is free. It ought to be plenty effective enough for the majority of small business owners.

A power tool

AcceptPay from American Express is definitely for the power user. For only $30 a month, users of AcceptPay can connect with QuickBooks, collect online payments from clients, and set up a wide array of customizable automatic invoices. It seems a pretty small price to pay for such a effective tool.

Invoicing for the tech-savvy

If you are tech-savvy and understand how to use open source software, BambooInvoice is a great option. This free service is highly customizable and lives on your in-house servers rather than in the cloud.  This makes it simple for you to make the program satisfy your company’s exact needs.

The best news for business owners is that these services are merely a small sample of the many online invoicing services available, most of them free or low-cost. Those business owners who wish to quickly gain control over their invoicing process should check them out.

It looks as if Microsoft is ready to do its part to discourage cyber crimes. Microsoft plans to offer real-time feeds that partners can use to study possible cyber threats and take the proper steps to boost their defenses against these attacks.

With Microsoft’s success in tackling botnets, they have been able to collect a lot of data around the specific threats these botnets pose. By allowing the botnets to contaminate highly controlled environments, Microsoft had been able to identify and remove the harmful bots and also learn how they work.

Previously these details had not been shared, but now this data can be shared with the government and private organizations, CERTs, & ISPs. Even though the amount of attacks will not likely decrease thanks to this real-time feed, the impact of a feed like this will be great. The amount of damage from a cyber attack will likely be greatly diminished because IT security professionals will be able to more quickly answer a threat.

Another great result a real-time threat feed could have is an improvement in overall information sharing between IT security companies. For too long IT companies have been hesitant to share threat information for the fear that it might fuel more attacks. Most experts say this an unsupported fear.  The cyber criminal “community” is already sharing and gaining knowledge from each other.  It’s only logical therefore that IT security professional share as much information as possible to combat the seemingly endless barrage of new cyber threats.

The IT industry has for too long viewed the sharing of the details of a cyber attack an invitation for a copycat attack. Hopefully Microsoft’s first small steps toward a more connected IT security force will take root and that sharing data and information is a more sensible choice than secrecy.

Many small business owners have employed the cloud in these tough economic times. Business owners can save money by utilizing programs within the cloud, from Photoshop alternatives to project-management tools. However, the cloud can be a bit questionable with regards to security. Documents stored in the cloud can be compromised or damaged.

Password issues

One of the biggest security issues when dealing with the cloud is password protection. This is also one of the greatest security issues outside of the cloud.

Business owners should be careful to choose passwords for their cloud projects which are challenging for others to guess. The best solution is for owners to include a mix of letters and numbers in their passwords. Owners should also be careful about sharing their passwords with a lot of people. The more people who have access to passwords, the more in danger important data and documents are.

Hacker alert

Hackers, malware, and spyware remain serious issues for cloud environments, just like they are issues that business owners face when logging onto their personal computers everyday. What makes this particularly scary is that individual business owners have little control over how secure cloud services are. The big names — companies like Microsoft and Google — must supply their own security for the information that business owners store in the cloud.

Common sense protection

There are a couple common-sense practices that will help protect small business owners who choose to store information in the cloud.

First, owners should consider what type of information they are storing in the cloud. The most sensitive data, data that could damage a company if it is lost or stolen, might not be appropriate for cloud storage. Instead, this data may be better preserved on a business owner’s individual computing system and reliably backed up.

Secondly, be careful about who is allowed access to the data stored in the cloud. It seems obvious that business owners protect their laptops and desktops with passwords. The same should be applied to the cloud.