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Office 365 to get enhanced Anti-spoofing capabilities

Enhanced anti-spoofing safeguards are rolling out for Office 365.

Microsoft services like OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft Teams are closely guarded by ATP (Advanced Threat Protection). Besides, there are numerous feature updates available in Office 365 threat protection service to address the evolution and advances in the threat landscape. The addition of enhanced Anti-Spoofing capability in Office ATP for protecting against spoofed emails from external domains further strengthens this security framework.

Anti-spoofing in Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection

The newest anti-spoof features help protect organizations from external domain spoof.  Office 365 recognizes emails from external domains having proper SPF, DMARC, and DKIM authentication settings as legitimate/authentic and therefore allow them to pass authentication, uninterrupted.

This normal process is however challenged when external domains do not have these settings properly configured. Without enforcement of these settings, domains show a high likelihood of being manipulated and maliciously spoofed, leaving customers vulnerable to phishing or spam attacks. The new external domain anti-spoofing capabilities help detect and block emails from external domains that do not have the following features,

  1. Correct authentication configuration
  2. An email infrastructure source with an unknown history

How does it work?

A newly enhanced filter in ATP first checks if the email from external domains, passes SPF, DKIM, and DMARC test.  If not, the filter thoroughly checks for historical sending patterns of that domain and associated infrastructure. If any suspicious behavior is noted, ATP assumes the sender does not bear a good reputation and as such, proceeds to junk the message.

Also, a feature worth noticing about Anti-spoofing – The filter constantly evolves and enhances itself based on mail flow patterns it observes.  ATP subscribers can access the spoof intelligence report in their Antispam Policy and take necessary actions if required.

How to access Compliance Manager by Office 365

Compliance Manager is now available

Compliance Manager is a cross-Microsoft-cloud services feature designed to help organizations meet complex compliance obligations, including GDPR, ISO 27001, ISO 27018, NIST 800-53, and HIPAA. Compliance Manger is rolling out and has been moved from Public Preview to General Availability.

How to access Compliance Manager?

Users can access Compliance Manager by signing into their Office 365, Dynamics 365, or Azure user account via the Service Trust Portal. This new compliance solution is designed to help organizations meet their data protection and regulatory requirements while using Microsoft cloud services. Compliance Manager enables users to perform on-going risk assessments, gain actionable insights to improve data protection capabilities, and simplifies compliance processes through its built-in control management and audit-ready reporting tools.

Compliance Manager is now generally available for Azure, Dynamics 365, and Office 365 Business and Enterprise subscribers in public clouds. Note that Office 365 GCC customers can access Compliance Manager, however, you should evaluate whether to use the document upload feature of compliance manager, as the storage for document upload is currently compliant with Office 365 Tier C only.

What do I need to do to prepare for this change?

By default, everyone in your organization with an Office 365, Dynamics 365 or Azure user account has access to Compliance Manager and can perform any action in Compliance Manager. To change the default permissions, at least one user must be added to each Compliance Manager role (see the instructions on our support page linked from Additional Information below). After a user is added to a role, the default permissions are removed and only users that have been added to a role will be able to access Compliance Manager and perform the actions allowed by that role.

Once you log into Compliance Manager you will see a number of assessments and what Microsoft has completed for the various assessments.  You will also see what controls your organization are responsible for.  You can export the assessment to excel if you need to provide it for an auditor or wish to save it for retention purposes.

Once in an assessment, you can update what your organization is doing to meet the requirements for the various supported standards.  This gives you the ability to track your compliance activities.  Some organization may already have GRC tracking software but they will find this tool useful if for no other reason to see the results of Microsoft Managed controls.

If Microsoft allowed you to have an assessment for your on-premises systems.  Like a blank questionnaire, clients could use it might be able to replace a GRC app for some companies.

When updating the Customer Managed Controls you have the ability to upload documents, lookup the related controls, assign an assessor, a test date and document the test results.

Microsoft provides you with detailed guidance for customer actions and allows you to document your control implementation details along with a test plan and any response to the assessment.

There is a Compliance Score that, “is a new intelligent scoring feature that is calculated based on an analysis of industry standard control components. Compliance Manager analyzes controls for their the impact to the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of protected data, as well as external drivers in order to weigh controls based on their impact.”

We think this is a great tool especially for small to medium businesses and local governments.  Most often these smaller organizations don’t have formal governance practices or necessary skills in-house.  This tool could help them develop those processes. We also see this as a great tool or internal auditors to use. It gives businesses a place to document the testing methods and results.

 

Office 365: New capabilities for iPad and iPhone

New features make Office and OneDrive the best place to work on iPad and iPhone

More and more, people around the world are working on the go, changing locations and devices as they create and collaborate with others throughout their day. As they work across their PCs, Macs and mobile devices, they expect an uncompromising experience that is familiar yet optimized for the device they are using.

Microsoft is committed to providing best in class experiences on all devices, and today, we are proud to share with you a set of new Office capabilities across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneDrive on iOS that will delight and make iPad and iPhone users more productive than ever before.

Real-time co-authoring in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on iOS – We live in a world where we’re often collaborating with multiple people in different locations and Office 365 provides the broadest and deepest toolkit for collaboration between individuals, teams, and entire organizations. Using real-time co-authoring, colleagues, friends, and family can contribute to and edit documents simultaneously in the Word, Excel and PowerPoint iOS apps. This allows you to know who else is working with you in a document, see where they’re working, and view changes automatically within seconds. The co-authoring experiences are also available in Office Online and the latest versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint on the PC and Mac, all made possible by storing your documents in OneDrive or SharePoint.

Drag and drop files anywhere with OneDrive – Sometimes your files can get scattered between different folders or even services and applications. Now it’s easier than ever to organize and rearrange your files. You can drag files in between folders in OneDrive and, if your teammates use SharePoint to work together, you can even drag OneDrive files to a SharePoint site giving them immediate access. On iPad, you can also drag files from other apps, such as iMessage, into your OneDrive and drag files out of your OneDrive to other apps.

Drag and drop content between Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneDrive on iPad – One of the most common and powerful tasks when creating content is pulling in text, photos, graphs, and other objects from different sources. Now you can pull in content with ease on your iPad with drag and drop support in Office and OneDrive. Easily drag and drop objects from OneDrive or from one Office app to another.

OneDrive Files app support – Today we’re also announcing native support for the Files app in iOS 11. OneDrive integration with the Files app allows you to access, upload, edit, and save your content to OneDrive or SharePoint from apps that support Files app integration. You can also tag and favorite your OneDrive and SharePoint files from within the Files app.

OneDrive redesigned to find the files that matter – The OneDrive iOS app has been redesigned from the ground up with a new layout that uses your screen space more efficiently allowing you to find your files faster. It’s easier to scan across file names, see the information that matters to you, and sort files how you want. New metadata is visible in the list view, so you can easily identify new files and files that have been shared.

Universal link support for shared files – Being able to seamlessly share and securely access files is essential for teamwork. Previously when you received a link to a shared file, you would be directed to a browser and prompted to re-authenticate. Today, we are announcing universal link support, which will open the document directly in the Word, Excel, or PowerPoint iOS apps. Further, if you don’t have a supporting application for the file, you’ll be directed to the OneDrive app to preview the file.

Preview 130+ file types in your OneDrive app – You and the people you work with use a variety of different file formats, but when you’re on your mobile device you might not have access to the native applications for those files. Now, the OneDrive iOS app creates crisp thumbnails and supports large previews of over 130 file types, including Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, RAW, 3D objects, and high-precision DICOM images. OneDrive lets you open, view, and share all of your files without leaving the app.

New accessibility features for Word, Excel and PowerPoint on iOS 11
The VoiceOver rotor in iOS improves navigation and the accessibility of content. For example, you can use the built-in rotor on iOS to navigate line-by-line or word-by-word and change the speed at which VoiceOver speaks. The new Office-specific rotors also let people with vision impairments navigate more efficiently in Word across tables and links, slides in PowerPoint, and sheets in Excel.

Users can also leverage larger text options in accessibility settings to modify the text size in the core Office apps. Visit the support pages for Excel, Word, and PowerPoint to learn more.

You can use take advantage of these new capabilities in the coming days by updating the Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneDrive apps in the Apple App Store.

Microsoft finally retired Windows 10 1511

 

The company also ended support for 1607 to users of Windows 10 Home and Pro.

Microsoft finally retired a 2015 version of Windows 10, marking 29 months of support for the untitled feature upgrade, nearly as long a stretch as the time between the releases of Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Windows 10 1511 – Microsoft labels its feature upgrades in a yymm format – received a final set of security patches on April 10.

The retirement date had originally been slated for Oct. 10, 2017, but last November Microsoft extended it an additional six months, albeit only for commercial customers. “To help some early enterprise adopters that are still finishing their transition to Windows as a service, we will be providing a supplemental servicing package for Windows 10, version 1511, for an additional six months, until April 2018,” Michael Niehaus, at the time a director of product marketing for Windows, said in a 2017 post to a company blog.

Customers running Windows 10 Enterprise or Windows 10 Education were given the support reprieve; those operating lesser SKUs (stock-keeping units), including Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro, had their support curtailed last October.

Earlier this year, Microsoft added six months of support to all versions of Enterprise and Education, raising the support roof from 18 months to 24 for not only 1511, but also for 1607, 1703 and 1709. The less expensive, less expansive, Home and Pro, however, retained the 18-month support timeline.

Also destined for an April 10 retirement party was Windows 10 1607, the mid-2016 feature upgrade that received its last security patches that day on Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro. Meanwhile, version 1607 on Enterprise and Education will continue receiving fixes until Oct. 9.

Windows 10’s bifurcated support timelines – 18 months for some SKUs, 24 months for others – complicate what had been an easy-to-understand practice of patching versions for a year and a half. Period.

Microsoft has tried to inform customers of the support due them by reminding them in January’s and February’s cumulative updates that patches end for Enterprise and Education, version 1511. “The additional servicing offer for Windows 10, version 1511 ends on April 10, 2018, and doesn’t extend beyond this date. To continue receiving security and quality updates, Microsoft recommends updating to the latest version of Windows 10,” the March documentation said.

The company has extended the lifespan of other software previously, including the original version of Windows 10, tagged as 1507. In February 2017, it added six weeks to the timetable. Generally, however, Microsoft has been hard-nosed about support deadlines, and for good reason.

“The danger is that customers won’t believe Microsoft will end support when they say [they will],” said Gartner analyst Michael Silver in a 2017 interview. “It would set a bad precedent if organizations think that they can rely on Microsoft to constantly extend [support].”

By hewing to the once-revised deadline for 1511, Microsoft had drawn a line in the sand, showing commercial customers that while it may bend to their demands, it will not break with critical policies, like these, which are foundation to its Windows-as-a-service concept.

4 WAYS TO SPEED UP YOUR PC

Speed Up Computer

How to make a computer faster: 4 ways to speed up your PC

By following a few simple guidelines, you can maintain your computer, help increase your PC speed, and help keep it running smoothly. This article discusses how to use the tools installed on your computer, plus a few safe and free downloads, to help make your computer faster, maintain your computer efficiently, and help safeguard your privacy when you’re online.

Note: Some of the tools mentioned in this article require you to be logged on as an administrator. If you aren’t logged on as an administrator, you can only change settings that apply to your user account.

1. Remove spyware, and help protect your computer from viruses

Spyware collects personal information without letting you know and without asking for permission. From the websites you visit to user names and passwords, spyware can put you and your confidential information at risk. In addition to privacy concerns, spyware can hamper your computer’s performance. To combat spyware, you might want to consider using Malwarebytes. This scan is a free service that helps check for and remove viruses. You should also download Microsoft Security Essentials for free to help guard your system in the future from viruses, spyware, adware, and other malicious software (also known as malware). Microsoft Security Essentials acts as a spyware removal tool and includes automatic updates to help keep your system protected from emerging threats.

2. Free up disk space

The Disk Cleanup tool helps you to free up space on your hard disk to improve the performance of your computer. The tool identifies files that you can safely delete and then enables you to choose whether you want to delete some or all of the identified files.

Use Disk Cleanup to:

– Remove temporary Internet files.
– Delete downloaded program files, such as Microsoft ActiveX controls and Java applets.
– Empty the Recycle Bin.
– Remove Windows temporary files, such as error reports.
– Delete optional Windows components that you don’t use.
– Delete installed programs that you no longer use.
– Remove unused restore points and shadow copies from System Restore.

Tip: Typically, temporary Internet files take the most amount of space because the browser caches each page you visit for faster access later.

To use Disk Cleanup:

Windows 7 users

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup. If several drives are available, you might be prompted to specify which drive you want to clean.

2. When Disk Cleanup has calculated how much space you can free up, in the Disk Cleanup for dialog box, scroll through the content of the Files to delete list.

3.  Clear the check boxes for files that you don’t want to delete, and then click OK.

4.  When prompted to confirm that you want to delete the specified files, click Yes.

After a few minutes, the process completes and the Disk Cleanup dialog box closes, leaving your computer cleaner, performing better, and potentially increasing your PC speed.  For more options, such as cleaning up System Restore and Shadow copy files, under Description, click Clean up system files, and then click the More Options tab.

Windows Vista users

1. In the Start menu, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup.

2. In the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box, choose whether you want to clean up your own files only or all of the files on the computer.

3. If the Disk Cleanup: Drive Selection dialog box appears, select the hard disk drive that you want to clean up, and then click OK.

4. Click the Disk Cleanup tab, and then select the check boxes for the files you want to delete.

5. When you finish selecting the files you want to delete, click OK, and then, to confirm the operation, click Delete files. Disk Cleanup then removes all unnecessary files from your computer. This may take a few minutes.

The More Options tab is available when you choose to clean files from all users on the computer.

Windows XP users

1.  Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup. If several drives are available, you might be prompted to specify which drive you want to clean.

2.  In the Disk Cleanup for dialog box, scroll through the content of the Files to delete list.

3.  Clear the check boxes for files that you don’t want to delete, and then click OK.

4.  When prompted to confirm that you want to delete the specified files, click Yes.

After a few minutes, the process completes and the Disk Cleanup dialog box closes, leaving your computer cleaner and potentially performing better.

3. Speed up access to data

Disk fragmentation slows the overall performance of your system. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk as a file is opened (to piece it back together). The response time can be significantly longer.

Disk Defragmenter (sometimes shortened to Defrag by users) is a Windows utility that consolidates fragmented files and folders on your computer’s hard disk so that each occupies a single space on the disk. With your files stored neatly end to end, without fragmentation, reading and writing to the disk speeds up.

When to run Disk Defragmenter
In addition to running Disk Defragmenter at regular intervals (weekly is optimal), there are other times you should run it, too, such as when:

– You add a large number of files.
– Your free disk space totals 15 percent or less.
– You install new programs or a new version of the Windows operating system.

To use Disk Defragmenter:

Windows 7 users

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter.


2. In the Disk Defragmenter dialog box, click the drives that you want to defragment, and then click the Analyze disk button. After the disk is analyzed, a dialog box appears, letting you know whether you should defragment the analyzed drives.

Tip: You should analyze a volume before defragmenting it to get an estimate of how long the defragmentation process will take.

3.  To defragment the selected drive or drives, click the Defragment disk button. In the Current status area, under the Progress column, you can monitor the process as it happens. After the defragmentation is complete, Disk Defragmenter displays the results.

4.  To display detailed information about the defragmented disk or partition, click View Report.

5.  To close the View Report dialog box, click Close.

6.  You can also schedule the Disk Defragmenter to run automatically. (Your computer might even be set up this way by default.) Under Schedule, it reads Scheduled defragmentation is turned on and then displays the time of day and frequency of defragmentation. If you want to turn off automatic defragmentation or to change the time or frequency, click Configure schedule (or Turn on Schedule, if it is not currently configured to run automatically). Change the settings, and then click OK.

7.  To close the Disk Defragmenter utility, on the title bar of the window, click the Close button.

Windows Vista users

1.  Open Disk Defragmenter: Click the Start button, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

2.  In the Disk Defragmenter dialog box, click the drives that you want to defragment and then click the Analyze diskbutton. After the disk is analyzed, a dialog box appears letting you know whether you should defragment the analyzed drives.

Tip: You should analyze a volume before defragmenting it to get an estimate of how long the defragmentation process will take.

3.  To defragment the selected drive or drives, click the Defragment disk button. In the Current status area, under the Progress column, you can monitor the process as it happens. After the defragmentation is complete, Disk Defragmenter displays the results.

4.  To display detailed information about the defragmented disk or partition, click View Report.

5.  To close the View Report dialog box, click Close.

6.  You can also schedule the Disk Defragmenter to run automatically. (Your computer might be set up this way by default.) Click Modify schedule….

7.  In the Disk Defragmenter: Modify Schedule dialog box, choose how often, which day, and at what time of day you want defragmentation to occur, and then click OK.

8.  Click OK again.

Windows XP users

1.  Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Defragmenter.

2.  In the Disk Defragmenter dialog box, click the drives that you want to defragment and then click the Analyze button. After the disk is analyzed, a dialog box appears, letting you know whether you should defragment the analyzed drives.

Tip: You should analyze a volume before defragmenting it to get an estimate of how long the defragmentation process will take.

3.  To defragment the selected drive or drives, click the Defragment button. Note:In Windows Vista, there is no graphical user interface to demonstrate the progress—but your hard drive is still being defragmented.  After the defragmentation is complete, Disk Defragmenter displays the results.

4.  To display detailed information about the defragmented disk or partition, click View Report.

5.  To close the View Report dialog box, click Close.

6.  To close the Disk Defragmenter utility, on the title bar of the window, click the Close button.

Running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter on a regular basis is a proven way to help keep your computer running quickly and efficiently. If you’d like to learn how to schedule these tools and others to run automatically, please read Speed up your PC: Automate your computer maintenance schedule.

4. Detect and repair disk errors

In addition to running Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter to optimize the performance of your computer, you can check the integrity of the files stored on your hard disk by running the Error Checking utility.

As you use your hard drive, it can develop bad sectors. Bad sectors slow down hard disk performance and sometimes make data writing (such as file saving) difficult or even impossible. The Error Checking utility scans the hard drive for bad sectors and scans for file system errors to see whether certain files or folders are misplaced.

If you use your computer daily, you should run this utility once a week to help prevent data loss.

Run the Error Checking utility:

1.  Close all open files.

2.  Click Start, and then click Computer.

3.  In the Computer window (My Computer in Windows XP), right-click the hard disk you want to search for bad sectors, and then click Properties.

4.  In the Properties dialog box, click the Tools tab.

5.  Click the Check Now button.

6.  In the Check Disk dialog box (called Error-checking in Windows 7), select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box, and then click Start.

7.  If bad sectors are found, choose to fix them.

Tip: Only select the “Automatically fix file system errors” check box if you think that your disk contains bad sectors.

To see the original article in its entirety click here.

Google Apps v. Office 365 Which Should You Use?

Microsoft took the beta label off of Office 365 last week, and many consider the cloud-based productivity suite a potshot at Google and Google Apps. Office 365 may offer cloud-based document, storage, and collaboration services that look like Google Apps, but the user experience and price tag are very different. Here’s a look at the major differences between them.

User Experience

The way the user interacts with the application suite may be the biggest difference between Google Apps and Office 365. When you use Google Apps, you live in your Web browser. You edit documents and spreadsheets in Google Docs through your browser, you get your email through Gmail, and you chat with colleagues using Google Talk – all in your browser.

Conversely, Office 365 requires you download a plug-in that will link your desktop with the cloud-based service. You’ll need Microsoft Office installed on your desktop already (to make use of offline and cloud-based features as opposed to webapps,) and you’ll need the .NET framework installed. You’ll also need Lync installed on your system as well if your organization will leverage instant messaging and chat. It’s a hefty list of system requirements you’ll need just to get started, especially compared to Google Apps’ requirements: a supported browser.

Document Collaboration

Microsoft Office documents are the de-facto standard in office environments, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Office 365 has an easier time with advanced formatting in Microsoft Word documents and Excel spreadsheets than Google Apps does. Microsoft has put a lot of time and effort into making sure the polish in Microsoft Office made it to Office 365. Office 365 users get the same templates, formatting features, and tools that desktop users get, and since the two services connect, you can create a slideshow in PowerPoint and upload it to Office 365 for editing later without worrying you’ll lose the formatting or images.

If your organization already makes heavy use of Microsoft Exchange for mail and Microsoft Office for productivity, Office 365 will appeal to those who want a familiar, robust tool. Google Apps, and specifically Google Docs, feels barren and plain by comparison, even if it’s more accessible and open.

Google Docs, on the other hand, does a solid job of importing most Microsoft Office documents, auto-saving them, and giving groups a way to all work in and on the same documents and files at the same time without stepping on each other. It’s definitely more bare-bones than Office 365, but it works seamlessly and without the need for desktop software.

Microsoft rolls in Sharepoint to handle document sharing and management, and depending on your opinion, it can be a good or a bad thing. Sharepoint adds a layer of complexity where Google allows more openness. While you do get the benefit of revision history, check-in/check-out, integration with Microsoft Office on the desktop, and integration with Sharepoint Web services with Office 365, Google Docs offers much of the same and lets you and others work in the same document at the same time and see who’s viewing and who edited last, all without the need for another platform.

Chat and Communication

Office 365’s presence tools, including Lync (formerly known as Office Communication Server) integrates with other Microsoft Office and Office 365 products so you can always see if someone is available for chat or a VoIP call, or who’s editing your document or viewing the same files that you are.

Google, on the other hand, already offers this with Google Talk and Google Voice. They’re not as tightly integrated with Google Docs as Lync is with Office 365, but they’re all there.

The only area where Office 365 and Lync outshine Google Talk and Google Voice is in screen-sharing and white-boarding, which Lync has natively but Google Talk does not. Again, Microsoft has more polish and shine on their applications, but feature-for-feature, they’re largely matched. Google Talk and Google Voice may be more Spartan, but they do have broader reach, especially for users who already have large contact lists.

Price

Google Apps Standard for your domain is free. Google Apps for Business offers two pricing plans: a flexible $5/user per month where you can add or remove users at will and pay the difference, and a $50/user per year plan where you commit for a year to get a discounted rate.

Office 365 requires the initial investment in Microsoft Office on your user desktops (as noted above: for use with some enterprise-level features,) some Microsoft Office Servers and services in your environment (like Active Directory if you plan to use those features,) but after that you’ll pay $6/user per month for the small business plan. If you don’t have Microsoft Office on your users’ desktops, you can pay another $12/user per month to get each one of them a copy of Microsoft Office Professional Plus.

Larger enterprises can choose tiered pricing plans that run from $10/user per month up to $27/user per month depending on how many services that want hosted in the cloud versus in their own environments. There’s no two ways about it: Office 365 will be more expensive for almost every business, but Microsoft thinks they have the feature depth to justify the price.

Which One’s Better?

The jury is still out, and even though Office 365 has been in beta for months, Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do if they want to win back enterprises that are looking for affordable cloud-based collaboration products. The familiarity that almost every business has with Microsoft Office may play a big role going forward, but the price tag will be something else they’ll have to overcome.

Feature-for-feature though, the two services offer the same basic functionality, although it can be said that Office 365 shines with polish and flare where Google Apps offers affordability and accessibility.

 

Save Face at Work with Outlook

 

1. Save face with MailtipsHave you ever hit “Reply All” to an email when you didn’t mean to? Or sent important information to someone and never gotten a response, only to learn later their email address was invalid? Microsoft Exchange 2010 and MailTips, a new Microsoft Outlook 2010 feature, can help prevent embarrassing mistakes, save you time, and alleviate frustration.Learn more: Turn on or off MailTips
2. Share your scheduleYou can share your calendar with others on a Microsoft Exchange Server—with permission, of course. Or you can publish your default Outlook 2010 to the web, which can allow more people to view it. If you publish your calendar to the web, you don’t have to have an Exchange account, and anyone can see it, even if they don’t have an Exchange account, either.Learn more: Introduction to calendar sharing
3. Stop repeating yourselfDo you do a lot of the same things over and over with emails? Like frequently move messages to a specific folder that you’ve set up? Or often forward messages to your team? Quick Steps in Outlook 2010 can help by turning commands and procedures that you use most often into one click actions.Learn more: Automate common or repetitive tasks with Quick Steps
4. Get in on the conversation—and manage itAt work you may often have conversations over email, where several people are weighing in on important issues. Have you ever missed someone’s response in one of these email conversations? Now you can see your email within the context of the conversation, with Conversation View. See the overall conversation, including your responses, find the most recent response, and easily figure out the message that is most important to you.Learn more: View email messages by conversation
5. Get in on the conversation—and ignore itMaybe you are no longer needed in an ongoing email conversation—or maybe the subject matter is no longer important to you. Whatever the reason, you can prevent additional responses from appearing in your inbox. The Ignore command moves the whole conversation and any future messages that arrive in the conversation to the Deleted Items folder.Learn more: Ignore all email messages in a conversation
6. Let colleagues know when you aren’t aroundIf you’re going to be heading out on vacation or even just away for the day, you can let your colleagues know your schedule and when they can expect to hear from you again. Customize automatic responses to emails you receive whenever you are unavailable.Learn more: Automatically reply to email messages with an Exchange account.
7. Protect what you sendIt’s easy to communicate with pretty much anyone via email. But there are times when you don’t want email you send to be forwarded to others, or printed out, or copied. You can use Information Rights Management (IRM) to help prevent sensitive email from being read, printed, forwarded, or copied by unauthorized people.Learn more: Introduction to IRM for email messages
8. Have it all in one place—and hear it, tooWith Unified Messaging (UM), you can receive email, voice, and fax messages in your Outlook Inbox. If you have an Exchange Server 2010 account, you can get Voice Mail Preview, which delivers both a recording and text that’s been created from the voice recording using automatic speech recognition.Learn more: Introduction to Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging
9. Contact info is at your fingertipsThanks to the Microsoft Outlook Global Address List (GAL), you no longer have to keep your contacts’ information stored on your computer–where it takes up space and gets out of date before you can manually update it. The Global Address List (GAL) tracks it all for you: phone numbers, building location, email addresses, and more.
10. Make sure they get itNeed to make sure your boss reads an email that you send her? Want to get your team to vote on their favorite restaurant for your team outing? You can add many different types of tracking to your email messages, including delivery and read receipts, voting buttons and follow-up actions.Learn more: Add tracking to email messages
11. Meet anywhere, anytimeGrab them for a meeting–just once or every week–find a meeting room, and even schedule meetings in a different time zone. Clicking the New Meeting button gives you access to everything you need to set up meetings with one or many.Learn more: Schedule a meeting with other people
12. Let someone else mind your calendarYou need to hand over your scheduling responsibilities to someone else—for just a bit, or for a good while. Or maybe you need to manage someone else’s schedule. The Delegate Access feature in Outlook lets meeting requests be received, accepted, and even sent for you by someone else.Learn more: Delegate access: Let someone else mind your calendar
13. Check email from any computerDon’t worry about dragging your laptop with you everywhere you go anymore: You can access your email from any computer connected to the Internet using any major web browser—even if it doesn’t have Microsoft Outlook on it. Outlook Web App (OWA) is a web-based version of Outlook that lets you access and send email, manage your calendar, and more.Learn more: Outlook Web App in Exchange 2010
14. It’s on your phone!Did we say forget about dragging your laptop with you? Well, forget about even needing to have a computer—Windows Phone 7 automatically comes with Office Mobile so you can check and send email, update your calendar, and keep on top of all that you need to.Learn more: Office Mobile site
15. No more extra gearIt used to be that when you were outside of your organization’s firewall, like when you were working from home or traveling, you’d need to log in to Outlook using a virtual private network (VPN) connection, which often required a smartcard or special tokens. Now Outlook offers Outlook Anywhere, an alternative to VPN connections that lets you use Outlook just as you normally do at your organization, without the need for special connections or hardware.Learn more: Use Outlook Anywhere to connect to your Exchange Server without a VPN

ABC Host Sandy Relief “Day of Giving”

Sandy Relief: ABC’s “Day of Giving” Will Include Dancing With the Stars, Jimmy Kimmel and More

ABC is giving back.

Today Monday, November 5, 2012, the ABC Network is hosting a “Day of Giving” across the network, which will encourage their viewers to help those impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

ABC’s programming, ranging from Good Morning America in the morning to Dancing With the Stars in the evening, will engage viewers with the relief efforts for Hurricane Sandy.

While Dancing With the Stars is planning to personalize sections of Monday night’s performance show with “Day of Giving” messaging (by including stories of how several of the show’s dancers were impacted by the storm), Good Morning America will kick off the “Day of Giving” by dedicating the 8 a.m. hour to raising money, followed by Live with Kelly and Michael, which will integrate the message into their Halloween episode. (It was postponed due to the storm.)

Next, The View‘s ladies and The Chew will discuss the “Day of Giving” and encourage the audience to donate to the American Red Cross Relief efforts. Katie Couric will engage Katieviewers in the relief efforts as well.

Rounding out the “Day of Giving” will be Nightline, which will devote time to the message and the impact of Hurricane Sandy, and Jimmy Kimmel Live, which will encourage viewers to give to the American Red Cross.

“The effects of Hurricane Sandy have impacted millions of people across the entire North East, including many of our co-workers, friends and families. This unprecedented devastation demanded an unprecedented response, so our team came up with the ‘Day of Giving,” Anne Sweeney, co-chair, Disney Media Networks and president, Disney-ABC Television Group, said in a statement. “This coordinated effort between network and syndicated programming spanning News, Daytime, Primetime and Late-Night will reach tens of millions of viewers with a specific call to action…to do what Americans do best, and pull together in support of those who are suffering. I’m incredibly proud of the team and all of our programs for this amazing response.”

Earlier in the day, ABC announced that it will donate $2 million to Hurricane Sandy relief and rebuilding efforts. ABC will donate $1 million to the American Red Cross for immediate, critical assistance, and another $1 million will be designated for organizations working on rebuilding efforts.

Would you like to help? Text REDCROSS to 90999 ($10 donation) or visit http://redcross.org

To View Full Article Click Here

5 Ways to Prepare for Hurricane Season

Hurricane season is from June 1 through November 30.  On October 29, 2012 the East Coast was hit with Hurricane Sandy.  Many businesses are still recovering and rebuilding from the largest Atlantic Hurricane on record.  Power outages, high winds and flooding affected many areas in New Jersey and New York.

The Small Business Administration and Agility Recovery hosted “Protect Your Business This Season” webinar.  

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Below are five steps to protect your business before a disaster like Hurricane Sandy:

Evaluate Risks

All types of risks exist such as environmental disasters, organized disruption, loss of service, equipment failure and many more.  Assess your company building for risks (inside and outside).  Also, assess business losses during and after a disaster strikes.

Calculate the cost of interruption

Calculating for  “post-disaster”  consists of many different scenarios.  Creating a plan for up to six months of interruptions for your company.  Another major concern is to design a backup plan with secondary vendors in case all primary vendors cannot provide their specific services. 

Insurance Coverage

Consult with your agent and an insurance expert when buying insurance for your business.  Insurance policies vary, it is important to design a policy that best fits your needs.

Create a communication plan

Gather primary and secondary e-mail addresses for all employees, contractors, vendors and customers to put an e-mail alert system in place.  Businesses could also use Social Media to alert public before and after a disaster.

Telework Policy

If a disaster strikes, employees may not have the ability to travel to the office.  Setting up a Telework Policy will grant employees access to work from home.  This policy can be for all employees or specific employees.  

Need help preparing for Hurricane season?

Contact us at 856-745-9990 or click here.

 

How to Migrate Your Facebook Account and Data to Google+

You may not be ready to ditch Facebook for good, but now that you’ve had a chance to kick the tires on Google+, you might be ready to make it your go-to social network. The problem: You’ve built up a lot of friends, photos, videos, and other data on Facebook over the years, and you don’t want to simply lose all that data. Here’s how to migrate it all from Facebook to Google+.

Photo remixed from an original by Shutterstock.

When Google+ came out, it’s success was very much up in the air (remember Google Buzz?). However, it seems a lot of people have already thrown themselves into Google+ full force—Facebook may have 750 million users, but Google+ has already crossed the 20 million user milestone in only 30 days. If you’re ready to give it a shot as your main network, here’s what you need to do.

Migrate Your Friends

A social network is nothing without a group of friends with whom to talk, so the first thing you’ll want to do is migrate your friends. Not everyone you know is going to be on Google+ yet, but it’s a good idea to make sure you don’t leave anybody out—and you can always send those other late adopters an invite to encourage them.

The easiest way to migrate your Facebook friends is to import them through a Yahoo email address. I know that sounds awful, but hear me out: While a few people have created browser extensions and other migration methods, Facebook shuts them down pretty quickly, since they don’t like non-partners pulling friend data. In addition, the non-Yahoo methods usually add your Facebook friends to Google Contacts, which you probably don’t want. You may not have a Yahoo account, but that’s what makes this method great—no need to fill up your main address book with Facebook junk. Plus, it really does only take a few minutes.

To do this, head to mail.yahoo.com and click the Create New Account button (if you already have a Yahoo or Flickr account, you can skip this step). Once you’ve created an account, sign in and head to the Contacts tab. Click on “Import Contacts” and choose the Facebook option. You should now see all your Facebook friends in your Yahoo address book.

Lastly, head to Google+ and go to the Circles tab. Click “Find and Invite” and click the Yahoo button. It’ll add all your Yahoo Contacts (or Facebook Friends, in this case), to the Find and Invite page and you can add your Facebook friends to your circles. I, for one, was shocked at how many of my friends were already using Google+ without me knowing.

Migrate Your Photos

Migrating your photos is ridiculously easy with the previously mentioned Move Your Photos Chrome extension. Install it, click on its icon in the extension bar, and log in to your Facebook account. Select the photos you want to transfer and click the upload button at the very bottom of the page. You’ll see the progress in the lower right-hand corner. Don’t log out while it works, just let it do its thing.

When it’s done, you’ll see those albums in Google+. By default, they won’t be public, and you can adjust each album’s privacy settings by going into them and clicking on the “Edit” link under “Visible To”.

If you don’t want to use Chrome, you can grab a similar extension for Firefox, but you have to transfer albums one by one. If you have Chrome installed, I recommend using the Chrome extension just this once because it’s much faster.

Migrate Your Videos

The only way to migrate your videos, unfortunately, is to download the entirety of your Facebook data and re-upload them. To do this, head to Account > Account Settings, and scroll down to “Download Your Information”. Hit the “learn more” link and hit he Download button. It will take awhile to gather your info, but you’ll receive an email when it’s done, and you can download a ZIP file full of your photos, videos, and profile information.

Strangely, when I did this, one of my two videos was missing from the “videos” folder in the ZIP file. However, I was still able to download that video from Facebook by installing the Video Download Helper extension for Firefox, navigating to the video you want to download, playing it, and clicking the arrow next to Download Helper’s icon in the add-on bar.

Once you’ve wrangled all the videos you want to move to Google+, you’ll just have to upload them one by one. Head into Google+, click on your profile, and go to “Videos”. Hit the “Upload New Videos” link and re-upload your videos to your Google+ profile.

Update and View Both Networks at Once

Now that all your data’s been migrated, you can enjoy using Google+ as your main social network. However, chances are you still have a few friends on Facebook you want to keep up with. The best way to do this is with the Start Google Plus extension for both Chrome and Firefox. Once you install it, you’ll see a Facebook and Twitter icon in the upper right-hand corner, which you can click on to connect your other accounts. Once your Facebook account’s been linked, every status update you make on Google+ will have the option of posting to Facebook as well, just by clicking on the Facebook icon. It’ll take with it any links, pictures, or other data that the status contains.

Start Google Plus will also plug your Facebook feed into your Google+ feed, so you don’t even need to check Facebook anymore. Just check your Google+ feed, and it’ll show you all of Facebook’s news feed as well, with links to comment if you so desire.

If you prefer to not use an extension, you can also update your status on both networks at once using Facebook’s “Upload via Email” feature. Just head to Facebook’s mobile page, copy your Upload via Email email address, and add it to its own “Facebook” circle on Google+. From now on, when you update your status on Google+, you can just include your Facebook circle to send that status to Facebook as well. This method isn’t perfect, however: it’ll only work with statuses of up to 50 characters, and it doesn’t work with photos. However, it does work over mobile, which is nice, and without any extensions.

It’s also worth mentioning the previously mentioned Google+Facebook extension. While it’s a much easier way to update both statuses at once, it’s been hit by a bit of controversy, which you can read more about over at our post and on this Reddit thread. The company has responded to accusations of malware injection, and it seems more accidental than something that was actually of malicious intent, but we still recommending you use this at your own risk. The “update by email” method is still the safest, but this is a possibility as well. With other extensions out there like Start Google Plus, there’s really no reason to take the risk.

There isn’t a foolproof, one-step way to migrate your data, but this should help make the process quite a bit easier for you Google+ fans out there. Got any of your own migration tips to share? Let us know in the comments.

You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

 

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