It took AOL 9 years to get 1 million users. Facebook: 9 months. Draw Something: 9 Days. In this video from our recent Mobile Strategy webinar, VP of Business Development Ryan Williams talks about the implications of Instagram’s and Draw Something’s explosive popularity.
If you’ve been a Nexxtep partner for any length of time, chances are you’ve heard the delightful voice behind our company, Mary Lambert. Learn more about the woman who keeps us in line in this edition of Getting to Know Nexxtep.
I’ve been here almost six years. I started as a receptionist, and now I wear several little hats. As the dispatch manager, I answer service calls from clients, create service tickets, and route them to the proper technicians. I also monitor the service board to make sure all issues are being handled in a timely manner. In addition to that, I handle hardware procurement and billing.
The people, and the atmosphere. I have always enjoyed coming into work. The partners who started this company have always shown they care about us and they maintain a great work environment.
My daughter, Blair. She exceeded all my expectations of anything I could have ever hoped for. She is an exceptional person.
…And the fact that I got this job and they kept me around for six years 
I read a lot. I enjoy being outside, taking walks or working in the yard.
Do you ever feel like you’re wasting money on frivolous IT expenses? Do you want to learn how to align your technology spending with your long-term business objectives? We have two resources that will help get your started:
In this short, 43-page e-book, we’ll show you 7 ways you can leverage technology management to improve profitability in your organization.
You’ll Learn How to:
Learn how well you are doing across over 200 critical areas of your business. Our Technology Management Audit analyzes everything from your computer systems to your business growth strategy. When your audit is complete, you’ll get a “grade” that reflects how well you’re handling risk within your business. When you sign on for N-Care Flex, we’ll reevaluate this audit several times a year. Our goal will be to improve your grade over time. Think of it as your technology management “Report Card.”
No other service provider will go to these lengths to ensure that you are doing everything necessary to manage risk and maximize profitability in your business. Have your business network and technology environment assessed when you contact us today. Pricing is subject to the size and complexity of your network. When you choose to partner with Nexxtep on our N-Care Flex plans, you will receive your full investment back.
One of our Tech Tips readers recently asked:
Can you tell us about the benefits of using threaded email subjects? I want to share this with our managers so that when they look something up, their messages will be strung together and easier to find.
Our reader is referring to “conversations,” which are emails that are grouped together by subject, creating a single conversation or thread. In most email systems, responses appear as separate messages, like this:
In Gmail, replies to emails (and replies to those replies) are displayed in one place, in order, making it easier to understand the context of a message- or to follow the conversation.
When you open one message in a conversation, all of your related messages will be stacked neatly on top of each other. We call this Conversation View. In Conversation View, each new message is stacked on top of the ones that arrived before it, so that the newest message is always the one you see first.
To see all the messages in a conversation, just click the “Expand all” button. 
(Source: Google Support).
Outlook users can also enjoy the benefits of conversation threading. Here are some step-by-step instructions:
Now, your conversations will stack up together, like this:
If you’re working in Outlook 2003 or 2007, here are step by step instructions for setting up conversation threading.
Neil Jones is a Level III Senior Systems Engineer with Nexxtep. He recently completed a Mobile Competency Training course offered by Apple. This training offered insight into managing Apple’s iOS products in the business environment, from both a technical and strategic standpoint.
If you have an iPhone, iPad or Android device, you probably use it for something like this:
But chances are, you also use it for something like this:
When iPhones and iPads first came on the scene, we used them for games, social networks, light email and web surfing. These fun, intuitive devices became our favorite toys. Now, they have also become powerful business tools. Since smartphones and tablets started off as consumer products, a lot of people use their personal devices for work. In IT, we call this “BYOD” (Bring Your Own Device).
It’s easy to take a cavalier approach with your personal devices. One minute you’re answering a critical work-related email, and the next you’re honing your artistic talent in Draw Something. It might be a pain to have to enter a complex password every time you want to access your business applications, but remember that you’re carrying around a powerful computer with access to your company’s information.
So even though you might think of your device as a toy, when you use it for work, it’s no different than using this:
If your company uses the BYOD approach, make sure that you have a policy in place that outlines how you’ll manage these devices. The biggest threat to mobile users is having your device lost or stolen, so you may need the capability to remotely wipe devices, even if your employee owns the device.
We recently partnered with an organization to setup new iPads for their employees. The owner asked us how to keep the iPads from getting lost or stolen. You can’t. They have a strange tendency to grow legs and walk away. However, you can make sure your data isn’t compromised. To keep their information safe, we made sure all of their proprietary information was centralized, secure and encrypted. No business data will be held on the iPads; all of it will be accessed from the Internet. If an employee’s iPad is stolen, we can wipe the device and prevent a thief from accessing sensitive information and putting the organization at risk of being sued.
Mobile device management is a fairly new concept. The path to making a stable and secure environment is still uncertain, but Nexxtep is trying to take the lead in this area. We offer mobile device management, setup, security and training as a part of our N-Care Flex plan.
To learn more about N-Care Flex and our mobile management services, contact us here.
This topic has gotten a lot of attention from the media lately as some employers have taken heat for implementing this practice. Employers ask for employee passwords in an effort to circumvent the person’s privacy settings and gain full access to what he’s posting online. Although the practice is technically not illegal if the candidate/employee gives her consent, there are risks involved.
What are the risks? For starters, sharing a Facebook password is a violation of their Terms of Service, and Facebook is vehemently opposed to the practice. By requesting an employee’s password, even though it’s not your account, you could still be in violation of Facebook’s terms and vulnerable to legal action. Secondly, there could be risks involved with violating Federal Equal Opportunity (EEO) Laws. For example, let’s say you requested access to a candidate’s Facebook account and found out they followed a certain religion. If you did not hire her, she could potentially sue you for discrimination. Thirdly, some states have proposed legislation to ban this practice, although a national bill was recently voted down in the house.
You don’t want employees airing their grievances about you or your customers online. Nor do you want to hire someone who could potentially tarnish your business’s reputation. However, there are other ways to address these concerns than won’t put you at legal risk. You can put a policy in your employee handbook that sets out the guidelines for using social media on company time, and for using social media to talk about the company or your customers. Preventative measures like this will go a long way in mitigating risk.
Our readers asked for more tips about productivity and email, so here is a tip that combines both subjects. Boomerang is a tool that you can use in Gmail or Outlook that can:
These are just a few of Boomerang’s features. The Gmail/Google Apps version is free, and the Outlook version is $29.99 (one time) with a 30-day free trial.
Here are some ways you might use Boomerang for work:
As enterprise mobility management becomes a pressing issue for employers, we often hear the question, “When does it make more sense for employers to own and pay for their employees’ mobile devices?” The answer to this question depends on two factors.
1. Will your employee give their mobile phone number to customers, clients and vendors?
If the answer is yes, then you should own the employee’s device. In the event your employee leaves, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, you will want to retain ownership of the phone number. When your customers and vendors call that number, they will reach one of your employees, rather than an ex-employee.
2. Will your employee access company data from the phone?
Again, if the answer is yes, then you should own the employee’s device. Whether your employee is accessing data from a custom-developed app, or through third-party applications, you will need the ability to wipe the phone if your employee does something inappropriate.
If you decide not to own your employees’ mobile device, make sure that you have a policy in place that limits the use of personal devices for company use.
Enterprise Mobile Strategy Workshop
At our next Road Tour stop, we’ll present a live workshops about building a holistic mobile strategy for your business. This strategy will include marketing, operations, financial and HR considerations. If you’d like to help us as we build this workshop, or if you want to gain access to the materials we’ll be presenting, join our LinkedIn group: Backstage Pass.
The number one complaint I hear from people who have an iPad is that what they can do with the device is limited. OnLive erases some of those limitations.
Twenty plus years ago, computer workers connected to a mainframe from a thin, “dumb” device. All of the computing power was held in the mainframes (which were big enough to fill entire rooms). Later, computing power was distributed to smaller servers and desktops, and laptop computers. Now, we’re going back to the old model. All of the computing power is going to the cloud, and we’ll connect to the cloud using our thin devices. The mobile devices you use to access the cloud will be slim in nature and processing power, and all the processing power will happen in the cloud. This is how OnLive desktop works.
If you have ever used LogMeIn to connect to your desktop from your home computer or mobile device, the concept of OnLive will be very familiar to you. The difference between services like LogMeIn and OnLive is that OnLive provides you with a desktop in the cloud, rather than your personal desktop. The industry is moving in this direction, and it’s only a matter of time (fifteen years, maximum) until all computing will housed in the cloud.
With OnLive, you have a Windows 7-based desktop at your disposal on your iPad or Android tablet. You can open and edit Microsoft Word, Powepoint and Excel Documents just as they appear on your Windows based PC. You can also open PDFs in Adobe Reader. With the Plus version ($4.99/month), you can access fast, Flash-capable Internet browsing, cloud storage, and web mail. Learn more about OnLive on their website.
I recently shared this Tech Tip at our Business Gone Mobile Lunch & Learn in Albany. If you’d like to access the slides from our Lunch & Learn, along with slides and materials from our future events, I encourage you to join our LinkedIn Group: Backstage Pass.
Apple just launched the latest iPad, which they’re simply calling “The New iPad.” Here are five of the best new features:
1. Retina Display. Similar to the iPhone 4 and 4S, the new iPad will have a high-resolution display that exceeds any other tablet or laptop screen.
2. Faster Processor. The new A5x processor will ensure better graphics performance with the new retina display.
3. HD Video Recording. You’ll be able to shoot high definition video in 1080p.
4. 5 Megapixel Camera. The new camera will have the same iSight optics featured in the iPhone 4S.
5. 4G LTE Capability. This means faster web surfing with your cellular data plan in areas that have 4G. Right now, 4G is only available in select areas, mostly cities. (View Verizon’s or AT&T’s 4G coverage information.)
To learn about all of the new iPad’s features, visit the Apple website.
