Simplex-IT BizBlog

Today’s workers are ALL mobile, whether they are on the road or not; a recent study found the average employee was at his or her desk only 40% of the time. Yet most companies’ communications infrastructure is designed for a deskbound workforce. Happily there IS a better way!

During Simplex-IT’s next free lunchinar, you will learn about Microsoft Lync, an often under-appreciated component of Office 365. Offering secure instant messaging, Internet-based voice, video conferencing, collaborative whiteboarding, presence and seamless document sharing on almost any device, Lync is transforming business productivity. If you’d like to see how your information workers can get more done in less time, this presentation is for you!

Where: Hattie’s Café, 164 N. Main Street, Hudson
When: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 from 11:30am-1:00pm

As a bonus, we will be awarding door prizes of Windows 7 and Office 2010 to two lucky attendees. Free food AND free software – how awesome is that!

We remind you, though, seating is limited. To reserve yours, email John@Simplex-IT.com or call 234.380.1277. Come join the fun!

One of the questions I hear frequently from users of Office is “Why did Microsoft switch from the familiar Menu-based interface in Office 2003 and earlier to the new Ribbon User Interface in Office 2007/2010?” Well, the short answer is the Ribbon is intended to be easier to use – with fewer clicks to accomplish frequent tasks.

For some, whether Microsoft met their goal remains open to debate.

But, for me, I was curious as to how they actually arrived at and ultimately decided upon the Ribbon configuration. I’m happy to report if you have 90 minutes to spare I have located The Story of the Ribbon, documenting the entire history of how this User Interface was created. It’s a truly fascinating story and entertainingly presented.

It’s not often you get to go “behind the scenes” of the development of a product and this is truly an eye-opening experience. You may find it even helps you understand Ribbon better.

If you are still using Office 2003 or earlier, this might just motivate you to consider making the jump to Office 2010. To those I would say “Come on in, the Ribbon’s fine!”

Enjoy!

Ok, I’ve been a geek most of my life.  If anybody starts talking about geek nostalgia (usually starting a conversation with something like “My first IT job we used paper tape to load a program into our 16k minicomputer while dinosaurs roamed the Earth,” I’ll jump right in.

But I’ve come to realize the importance of talking about business.  About understanding business processes and needs.

And it’s a skill that’s still sorely lacking in the IT world these days.  And in my mind it’s the best skill set any IT professional can develop in terms of increasing their worth to their organization (or client, in the case of consultants).

I’ll be speaking at the Ohio North SQL Server User Group on Tuesday 3 January about this very topic.  Click here for more information, and to register.

The meeting is free, open to the public, and there will be pizza, plus a couple raffle prizes (at least 2 copies of Windows Ultimate!).

Ok, this is thanks to our bud Dan Hanson over at GreatLakesGeek.com.

Don’t know what to get that Microsoft geek who’s on your list, but you really don’t want to spend anything on?  We’ve got you covered!

It seems that Microsoft has put up 7, yup 7 free technical eBooks for downloading.

Yup, they're free!

Now, these are pretty good books.  Each of them are decent sized, and worth perusing.

And the topics cover a wide range of topics, including:

• IT Careers
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Virtualization
• Office 365
• SQL Server 2008 R2
• SQL Server “Denali” (the new version!)
• Deploying Windows 7

 Good stuff!

Click here to get your copies (oh, and check out the poster showing creating snapshots in a Hyper-V environment)

In the business world, productivity is largely associated with just a few software applications – word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and email – typically referred to as a group by the term “office suite.” And to date the dominant player in that category has been Microsoft Office, with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook having established themselves as the de facto standards. But with the recent advent of cloud services there is new competition to Microsoft’s “King of the Hill” title in office applications.

A recent review by Tony Bradley in the October issue of PC World presents a nice comparison of three of the major competitors in this nascent arena. “Google Apps vs. Office 365 vs. Zoho Docs: Cloud-Based Office Suites Showdown” (click the title to view) objectively compares the various office tools themselves, their consistency of formatting, how they work on mobile devices and in different Web browsers, and how much they cost.

Of course, as a Microsoft partner and strong proponent of Office 365, we were pleased with the overall conclusions and resulting ratings:

Office 365            – 4.5 stars

Google Apps      – 4 stars

Zoho Docs           – 3.5 stars

Does that mean you should automatically choose Office 365 as your company’s cloud-based office solution? Not necessarily. In fact, one of the benefits you may derive from reading this review is the wealth of additional articles that are referenced, providing even more insight into the pros and cons of each of these individual packages.

Should you ultimately be interested in pursuing Office 365, or have additional questions, Simplex-IT is of course happy to be of assistance. Please feel free to contact us by emailing John@Simplex-IT.com or calling 234.380.1277. Operators are standing by!

A friend of mine turned me onto this great utility for controlling remote computers that are physically next to each other, it’s called “Mouse without Borders”. My home office consists of a desktop computer, but I also keep my laptop on my desk. I would normally need a KVM or a 2nd set of keyboard/mouse to flip between the two effectively. This is rather inefficient. I then found some utilities that would allow me to move my desktop’s keyboard/mouse. The first one I tried “MaxiVista” (http://www.maxivista.com/) worked pretty good, but I couldn’t use Aero visual enhancements with it. Yes I’m being picky and spoiled. However once I was pointed towards Mouse without Borders I use this functionality all the time and can keep Aero turned on without any issues. Over 1GB ethernet I notice no lag with mouse movements or keyboard typing, and the copy/paste features really do work well. It is extremely easy to switch between machines now, it’s just like having multiple monitors how you move between them.

Here’s the link to it, I hope others find it as useful as I have!
Microsoft’s “The Garage” Mouse without Borders
http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2011/09/09/microsoft-garage-download-mouse-without-borders.aspx

Bob here. As you know, we are a Microsoft Partner. Until recently, we’ve resisted the temptation to going for the larger scale (and somewhat expensive) higher-level partnerships, not only with Microsoft but other vendors as well. In many cases, these vendor partnership programs are little more than marketing strategies, helping to get logos and implied skills out more. So you might say I’m a little jaded in terms of partnership programs.

Well, I was. Now that Simplex-IT is a Silver Partner with Microsoft, I am firmly convinced that the only way a company has a remote chance of successful IT project implementation is to use a Microsoft partner.

Okay, I have to confess. That was a bit jaded, even by my standards<g>.

So why did we finally decide to go with the deeper Microsoft partnership? The key issue with the partnership is demonstrating the competencies that go with it. In our case we chose two competencies: “Server Platform” and “Portals and Collaboration.”

When you consider competencies, at least with Microsoft, you’re really talking about two things. Knowledge and Experience.  Knowledge is determined through employment of certified individuals, and experience is determined through your customers admitting to both knowing you and engaging you in projects that fall under the competencies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah… There’s money involved too (isn’t there always?).  But honestly, that wasn’t the most important issue.

Actually, on review we found that we already had both requirements under our belts. It was simply a question of formalizing the experience by contacting customers and asking them to share with Microsoft their experiences. Thankfully, we have a lot of great customers out there, and many of them still think (for some strange reason) that we know what we’re doing<g>.

So literally it took us about two or three days to get these two competencies. And my suspicion is that before the years over will probably add a couple more under our belts as well.

Are we a different company because of this? Of course not. Are we going to hold this over everybody’s heads, pretending that this makes us somebody special? Again, of course not. Over the past several years, I’ve made the interesting transition from technician to business owner. And during this process one thing stands clear. The most effective way to communicate the quality of work and the dedication ain’t in marketing, advertising, certifications, or partner logos. It’s getting the prospective customers to talk to your existing customers.

At least that’s work for us so far.

If your organization has been waiting for just the right time to invest in the latest Microsoft software, your wait may be over. Through the end of this year qualified purchases of many of Microsoft’s most popular products are now eligible for significant savings that will be paid out in the form of Partner Subsidies. These Partner Subsidies may then be used to pay for additional goods or services provided by your Microsoft Partner.

One of the things that is new this time around is the addition of the Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online cloud services to the list of eligible products. For the first time, when you sign up for an annual subscription of these offerings you can earn Partner Subsidies for each seat of Online Services to which you commit.

Products must be purchased by December 31, 2011 to be eligible for this promotion. For more details on the promotion and what products are included call Simplex-IT at 234.380.1277, or email John@Simplex-IT.com.

Steve here,

I recently ran across a blog post by Microsoft outlining the new improvements to windows explorer inside Windows 8 scheduled to come out this time next year. Looks like Microsoft gathered lots of data over the past few years on which functions and buttons are used most often by users and incorporated that information to come up with the new version. Below is a chart showing the functions that were used by most users:

That taken into consideration Microsoft released a few screen shots of the improved ribbon, notice all of the functions outlined:

The rest of the explorer window looks pretty similar to that in Windows 7…also Microsoft has been implementing this style into their Office 365 SharePoint site and other apps so it shouldn’t take much adjustment.

One of the benefits of this improved ribbon will make it much easier to manage and organize files quickly and take less steps to do so. One of my personal favorite features (and true for many IT people) is the ability to launch a command prompt with administrative privileges from the File menu:

Overall I am enjoying the way Windows 8 is developing and look forward to more features as development progresses. It is nice to see Microsoft taking additional steps in their development to cater to consumer concerns and needs. I will keep you updated as more unfolds!

Bob here.  I’m not one to resist a bargain.  Ok, actually I am, but not in this case.  When I heard that HP was discontinuing production of their TouchPad line of tablets (click here for details) after only 7 or so weeks on market, I leapt into action.  Ok, actually, I did nothing.  But when I heard that HP was selling them for around $100 apiece (down from about $500), ok, now that got my attention.

Yesterday, my TouchPad appeared.  The first thing, of course, was get it connected to Office 365.  And that’s what this blog entry is about.  Keep in mind that the TouchPad is based on the webOS, both of which were given HP buh-bye.  But connecting to Office 365’s email is pretty simple.  You go through these steps:

First, you’ll need to know the actual server that your Office 365 account is hosted on.  To do this, go to a workstation (something with web access):

• Log onto Outlook Web (www.Outlook.com) with your Office 365 credentials
• Click on “Options” in the top right
• Select “See All Options…”
• Click on “Settings for POP, IMAP, and SMTP access…” in the middle left of the screen
• Under “SMTP setting” you’ll see a “Server name:”
• That gibberish to the right is the server name “pod51022.outlook.com” as an example.  Right that down!

(Ok, now we’re working on the TouchPad)

• Ok, hopefully you’ve set up the internet access already (or this will be a short trip)
• Tap the launcher icon (bottom right)
• Tap the “SETTINGS” tab on the upper right
• Tap the “Accounts” icon
• Tap the “Add an Account” button
• Tap the “Microsoft Exchange” button
• Tap the “Manual Setup” button
• For the manual setup, you’ll be asked for 5 things:
  • Email Address:  That would be your email address.
  • Server:  “https://”  and the server for your email account (see note above).  So using that example it would be https://pod51022.outlook.com
  • Domain:  Leave blank
  • Username:  You email address
  • Password:  that would be your password.
• Tap “Create Account” to finish.  This should take maybe a minute.
• By default, email, contacts, address lookup and calend are synchronized.  Change that as you will, then click “Create Account.”

Famous last words, you’re done.  Pretty simple, huh?  Hopefully this was helpful!