Category: Tips & Info

Tips & Info Category

Windows 10 Pro is a dead end for the enterprise, Gartner says

Recent changes by Microsoft to the Windows 10 support schedule underline why Windows 10 Pro is an ill fit for most companies.

Windows 10 Pro is a dead end for enterprises, a prominent Gartner analyst has argued.

“[We] predict that Microsoft will continue positioning Windows [10] Pro as a release that is not appropriate for enterprises by reducing … support and limiting access to enterprise management features,” Stephen Kleynhans, a research vice president at Gartner and one of the research firm’s resident Windows experts, said in a report he co-authored.

Microsoft’s Windows 10 Pro occupies the middle ground between the consumer-grade Home and the corporate-level Enterprise in features, functionality and price. Because Enterprise versions of Windows have never been available to computer makers, Pro – sometimes, as in Windows 7, tagged Professional instead – has been the most popular pre-installed OS on new business PCs. (Corporations typically re-image new personal computers with Enterprise upon receipt of the devices.)

But although Pro or Professional has a long history in business settings, Microsoft has made numerous decisions in its Windows 10 migration campaign to separate Pro and Enterprise even more, pushing them apart. In Kleynhans’ view, the gap has become unbridgeable.

The last straw was Microsoft’s on-the-fly changes to Windows 10 support.

Last year, the Redmond, Wash. developer announced a six-month support extension for Windows 10 1511, the November 2015 feature upgrade, “to help some early enterprise adopters that are still finishing their transition to Windows as a service.” In February, Microsoft added versions 1609, 1703 and 1709 – released in mid-2016, and in April and October of 2017, respectively – to the extended support list, giving each 24 months of support, not the usual 18.

“Some customers have requested an extension to the standard 18 months of support for Windows 10 releases,” a Microsoft executive said at the time.

There was a catch: Only Windows 10 Enterprise (and Windows 10 Education, a similar version for public and private school districts and universities) qualified for the extra six months of support. Users running Windows 10 Pro were still required to upgrade to a successor SKU (stock-keeping unit) within 18 months to continue receiving security patches and other bug fixes.

Windows 10 Enterprise 1709, for example, and its free “supplemental servicing,” will exhaust support in October 2019. But Windows 10 Pro 1709 runs out of support on April 9, 2019.

“The one thing that really surprised me about the added support,” said Kleynhans in an interview, “was the fact that it didn’t apply to Pro. I think that this telegraphed the fact that, for businesses, Pro is being dead-ended.”

Even though the six-month support extension ended with the 1803 feature upgrade, the one that began reaching some users late last month, in the report Kleynhans co-wrote with Gartner colleague Michael Silver, the duo made clear that they believe Pro is viewed by Microsoft as a second-class citizen.

“Customers currently using Windows 10 Pro should continue to monitor Microsoft’s life cycle announcements because they will eventually need to budget for Windows [10] Enterprise as Windows [10] Pro becomes more ‘pro-sumer’ and small-business oriented,” they wrote in a six-item list of recommendations.

Another component of Microsoft’s current Windows 10 support strategy, something the company has labeled “paid supplemental servicing,” was also out of bounds for those running Windows 10 Pro. The extra support, which Microsoft will sell at an undisclosed price, is available only to Enterprise and Education customers.

Paid supplemental servicing adds 12 months to the 18 months provided free of charge.

“The extensions and paid support option only apply to the Enterprise and Education SKUs,” Kleynhans and Silver said in their report, “Plan and Budget for Short Windows and Office Support Cycles Based on Microsoft’s February 2018 Announcements,” which was published by Gartner last month. “Customers using Windows 10 Pro will still see support end after 18 months. In this way, Microsoft is further reinforcing that it expects enterprise customers to move to the Enterprise edition of Windows 10.”

Microsoft announces the new Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center

To enable IT admins to better manage the various aspects of Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business services, Microsoft is announcing the new Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center.

Now, there’s an admin center just for calling and messaging.

This new portal will offer a unified experience to manage both Teams and Skype for Business and will also include Call Analytics and the Call Quality Dashboard. Admins can also get end-to-end insights and the ability to manage Teams settings on a user level in this new portal.

Following features are available in this release:

Microsoft Teams messaging policy: Create custom policies for messaging scenarios for your users.

User management: Assign policies and configure your users.

Microsoft Teams guest messaging settings: Control the messaging capabilities for guest accounts in Microsoft Teams.

Federation settings: Manage federation between tenants for Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business. (Please note that federation for Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business will roll out in stages and this setting might not be visible for you during the initial rollout.)

Audio conferencing: Configure dial-in numbers and settings for Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business.

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,

Correct authentication configuration
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.

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

Keywords in Search Engine Visibility

Finding the Right Keywords in Search Engine Placement

Does the task of finding good keywords for your website seem daunting? Search Engine Placement provides a variety of keyword suggestions from all competition and search volume levels, which makes it easy to pick the best keywords for your site and your goals.

When you’re researching keywords, keep these things in mind:

Low search volume, low competition (known as long tail keywords)
Long tail keywords typically contain 3-5 words in a phrase, and they are the bread and butter of keywords. Generally speaking, it’s easier to rank with these keywords, and they convert clicks to customers at a higher rate because the searcher knows specifically what they are looking for. For example, someone who sells Acrylic Aquariums might use 50 gallon bull nose aquariums.

High volume, low competition (short tail keywords)
Short tail keywords are new keywords or phrases that recently started generating search traffic. You need to be quick to catch them, though. For example, a recent short tail keyword is Susan Boyle.

High volume, high competition (wish list keywords)
Wish list keywords are the words and phrases everyone wants to use, such as real estate, aquariums, or cell phones. While wish list keywords do generate a lot of traffic, the conversion levels are generally very low because the words and phrases are too generic.

Take the term aquariums, for example. People searching for that word might want to buy an aquarium, find a local aquarium, or see photos of aquariums around the world. If I sell aquariums, relying on this as my primary keyword would take a huge effort to rank and most of the traffic generated by this keyword would likely be irrelevant.

Our highly trained, courteous support staff is waiting to take your call. Whatever time it takes to assist you, that’s the time you’ll receive. We’ll resolve any issue to your complete satisfaction.

Call (888) 505-1532 to get started now or click here

GoDaddy Hacked, Millions of Sites Down

GoDaddy.com, the largest domain name registrar on the Web, has been taken offline, and a self-proclaimed member of the Anonymous hacktivism collective is taking responsibility.

The administrators of GoDaddy confirmed on Monday that they were suffering from technical issues, which the website TechCrunch reports to be impacting a multitude of websites and their affiliated email accounts that are hosted through the service. Although the company has not discussed the specifics yet, a self-described member of Anonymous says that he or she is responsible, a claim that has not been verified yet.

On Twitter, user @AnonymousOwn3r writes, “the attack is not coming from Anonymous coletive [sic] , the attack it’s coming only from me” and that the the action is being carried out “to test how the cyber security is safe and for more reasons that i can not talk now.”

GoDaddy has tweeted, “We’re aware of the trouble people are having with our site. We’re working on it.”

On Friday, it was reported that the White House is preparing to roll out an cyber security Executive Order that will serve as a surrogate until Congress can come to agreement on a bipartisan legislation to protect America’s computer infrastructure.

Earlier this year, GoDaddy announced that they would be supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, a controversial legislation that if approved would have greatly changed the US government’s ability to monitor the Internet. The company eventually reversed their stance, but not before a massive protest resulted in many of their clients switching to other domain registrars. The boycott reportedly ended with thousands of GoDaddy’s millions of customers, including Wikipedia, cancelling their accounts.

Founded in 1997, Arizona-based GoDaddy.com is used by millions of customers worldwide, including a large number of small businesses. At 4 p.m. EST, GoDaddy tweeted, “Update: Still working on it, but we’re making progress. Some service has already been restored. Stick with us.”

Other social media accounts affiliated with Anonymous have not confirmed the validity of the alleged culprit’s claim and have largely distanced themselves from the hack. GoDaddy’s 24-hour tech support telephone line has also been inaccessible during the duration of the outage.

Which Cell Phone is Right for You?

There are so many choices these days when it comes to choosing a new cellphone or smartphone. Believe it or not there are now utilities out there that can help you make an educated decision based on your answers to a handful of questions. WWW.TopTenREVIEWS.com has a great Mobile Phone Configuration that can guide you in the direction to your perfect phone match. Click Here to be directed to their site to try out this very helpful utility.