The consumer preview of Windows 8 has been out long enough for people to get some idea of how using Microsoft’s new operating system on a tablet compares to any iPad, but in particular, the iPad 3. It has its pluses and minuses, like everything else, but overall, those in the know seem to think that, yes, Windows 8 can give the iPad a run for its money.

There are 6 features in Windows 8 that can make it a contender with the iPad.  As you probably know, Windows 8 is an operating system, and the iPad is a tablet computer. The reason people are making comparisons is because although the Windows 8 operating system can be used on a laptop or desktop computer, it is a better fit and was probably designed with a tablet in mind.

Windows 8 has huge colorful, customizable apps on the start screen where the iPad has apps just like the kind you would see on a smartphone. When comparing the two, the Windows 8 app menu requires more gestures to make things happen as opposed to physically touching the screen. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Now, when it comes to browsers, Internet Explorer 10, which comes as part of the Windows 8 operating system package, wins hands down. Surprising, Internet Explorer 10 is lightning fast for both opening and closing Web pages.

Also, Windows 8 can handle more devices, which makes it easier to access multiple files and add-ons in a single domain.   This feature could be very useful for doctors, lawyers and sales professionals in any industry. Also quite handy is the fact that you can view two apps at once with Windows 8, something that can’t be done on an iPad.

It could definitely could be helpful to read an email and look at the document referenced in the email message on the same screen. Euphoria. And for those of you with larger fingers, Windows 8 allows you to resize the keyboard to make typing easier.

Now, when it comes to doing business, depending on what kind of business you do, using a tablet isn’t a viable option for 100% of your work. That’s where Windows 8 really trumps the iPad. Macbooks don’t have apps; however, if you can adapt an Apple computer to work with Windows 7, then chances are, eventually, you’ll be able to do the same thing with Windows 8. Until then, Windows 8 is going to dominate with people who either can’t or don’t want to use a tablet computer but want the convenience of apps on their home screens and the speed of IE 10 when they go online.

So, yes, Windows 8 can compete with the iPad and even win in some arenas. But keep in mind, Windows 8 is still in the testing phase. We won’t really know how much of a contender it is until the full version debuts, presumably, later this year.

The big concern in my opinion – it is really late to the game. The iPad already is in homes and offices, and people know it and recognize it.  But with some good technology and smart marketing, eventually it could compete.

Businesses today wrestle and grapple with the thought of hiring their own technology support staff to support their daily need for IT support without fully understanding the risks and the costs associated with having their own team of technology professionals.

Business owners, C level execs and Managers are attracted to the idea of having a team or a consultant readily available within shouting distance down the hall, basically having an IT resource committed to them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, many of today’s business owners across the country are not aware of the total risks their business is exposed to by electing to bring their technology support in-house.

More often than not it is purely a cost based decision, on the surface it may appear to be more cost effective to hire a consultant or employee who is committed as a full time employee. CFOs and Accounting Managers often look only at the cost of having their IT outsourced and or attracted to hiring someone for a few thousand dollars a month as part of their staff will save their company in the long run. This is not the case in reality and having a full time employee will actually end up costing business today more in the long run.

So, what are the advantages of having an IT partner or Managed Service Provider (MSP) who focuses on delivering a complete managed technology solution? There are a number of immediate benefits over having a full time employee. These benefits include:

• The average technology professional with five years’ experience may be worth $70,000 plus a year. This is great when you looking at the bills from your IT provider and see that you have probably spent paid the same in their consulting bills for only a fraction of the time. When a business elects to go internal, a $70,000 salary now buys the business one person and not a team of professionals offering depth in expertise and knowledge.

• MSP’s will provide around the clock monitoring and coverage throughout the entire term of the contract. When a company hires their own IT staff, now the challenges around vacation scheduling, training and time off from illness impacts the company. An outsourced IT Consulting company provides full time IT coverage, but vacations, illness and other absences now are not an impact on your technology support.

• There are hidden additional costs when a business elects to hire internally. The costs associated with training can rise rapidly; when you have a trusted IT partner or MSP, training is no longer your company’s challenge. The IT Consulting Company ensures that the skills of their team are up to date. Combine this with costs associated with procurement of equipment that include iPhones, SmartPhones, laptops and other supplies, expenses can quickly add up. And then there is the added payroll expenses associated with healthcare, payroll and other logistical items.

IT Consulting companies can offer a wealth of knowledge and great resources when needed, offering networks of partners who can support a wide geographical region, or just across town, wherever support is needed. When a company turns to hiring their own staff, this experience often is not available to them and they are stuck with just a single person or a very small team with limited expertise. Now when these skills are required outside of the skills level of their staff, this becomes an additional expense that normally the right IT partner can extend to a company as part of their program.

• IT technicians always like to be challenged– even the ones that you hire. What happens at the average company when the challenges stop occurring? Boredom is disastrous as lack of incentive can set in quickly. There are two possible outcomes that occur with in-house staff or break-fix providers who deal with these challenges:
• They choose to leave to seek out challenges – When a company loses a member of their own internal staff, the intellectual property and knowledge goes with them. This leaves a huge void in the understanding of your systems and network layout. With a trusted Consulting company, this knowledge is retained and companies continue to function as if nothing occurred.
• Extended repair times – This can be disastrous as well. Many IT expenses are the result of an over extended repair time or emergency billing opportunity. When dealing with a break-fix provider, what is not being accomplished is the attention to the daily needs of your systems and network. Those issues are being managed on an emergency “need it done now we are down” relationship at the highest cost possible. And, there is little incentive to complete the repair quickly when they are billing at their highest rate. MSP’s provide the daily attention to your systems require as the main focus of their services.

There are many firms that elect to go with their own in-house IT person or try to complete the needed tasks themselves. However, what seemed like a great idea quickly turns into a huge business mistake that ends up costing them.

Adam Cline, CEO of Kern Glass Company in California was previously heavily involved with his own IT service delivery. “Outsourcing freed me up where I could focus more on the business, growing the business. I was running it, managing it and running everyone’s desktops and I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

When a company elects to retain an outsourced firm over hiring staff, they are getting service from a company who is focused on ensuring the IT needs are being addressed in the most efficient manner possible. Many trusted MSP’s are focused on the bigger picture, ensuring everything is looked after in a company’s environment including:

• Vendor Relations
• IT Budgeting
• Network Monitoring and Preemptive IT services
• Knowledge Base Management
• Disaster Recovery Planning

Partnering with a trusted Managed Service Provider brings value to any business no matter what the size, what makes more sense to you?

Limiting the knowledge, options and having to deal with people challenges such as complacency and boredom or expanding available options by having a wonderful relationship with a trusted IT partner who understands what business needs to grow, increase profits and the importance of the right technology solution.

No matter what industry you are in, the size or location of your company, chances are high that you spend the majority of your day in front of the computer. The one major downside to this is that you could injure yourself, resulting in lost time and the need for physical therapy. Do you know what the most common computer work related injuries are and how to minimize them?

The majority of injuries sustained while working with computers are not instantaneous, they happen over time. The most common form of computer related injury is the Repetitive Strain Injury, also known as RSI. Soft tissue, muscles, tendons, nerves and ligaments are all susceptible to RSI. With proper maintenance and knowledge, almost all RSIs can be prevented. If left unchecked, an RSI could lead to lost time and possibly irreparable damage.

Eye Strain Eye strain happens when you have overexerted your eyes. The most common symptoms include:

• pain around the eyes,
• dry eyes,
• fatigue,
• photophobia (sensitivity to light) and
• blurred vision.

Often, severe eye strain will also cause pain or tension in the neck and shoulders. The most common causes of eye strain are poor workspace layout and sub-par lighting conditions.

The good news is that in most cases, eye strain won’t lead to permanent vision complaints, but if left unchecked it could cause productivity problems. The easiest way to prevent eye strain is to work in a space with lighting that is neither too strong or weak, and have a light source that does not create glare. It is equally important to take short breaks from the monitor. Follow the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, look at something (not another monitor) 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

Posture Related There are a number of related injuries to your posture, including: back pain, neck pain and headaches. These injuries typically come from bad posture, combined with sitting for an extended amount of time. It may not seem like you can injure yourself by sitting in a chair all day, but your muscles are not designed to stay in the same position for such a long period of time, and doing so can result in muscle pain. Poor posture at work can also lead to an increased chance of a herniated disc, commonly called a “slipped disc”.

There are a number of things you can do to minimize posture related injuries.

• Adopt a proper posture. Have a chair that pushes the small of your back (bottom) out, as this will promote a more natural spinal position. Try not to cross your feet, as comfortable as it is, as doing so puts pressure on your lower back.
• Get up and move around every 20 minutes to half hour.
• Stretch. Move your joints through their normal range of motion.
• If you have kinks or muscle pain, gently massage the area with a kneading motion.
• Get up. There is a rising trend of using a standing workstation – this could be another option.

Arm Related The most common type of injury to the arm is the well-known Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). This mainly happens in two places: the wrist and the elbow. CTS occurs when the median nerve (one of the main nerves) is compressed. CTS in the wrist is the most common RSI, and can be a costly injury. The median nerve also passes through the elbow. If compression occurs there, it can result in an injury commonly called “tennis elbow”. Symptoms include: numbness of the hand and arm, pain and weakness in grasping.

There are a number of things you can do to prevent CTS:

• Keep your mouse and keyboard close together.
• Type and hold the mouse gently.
• Remove your hands from the mouse and keyboard when not using them.
• Take frequent breaks to move your wrists and elbows through their natural range of motion. Be careful to not over extend.

With a combination of breaks, ergonomic workplaces, and other preventative measures you and your staff will see fewer injuries and higher productivity. If you would like to learn more ways to prevent injuries, or increase productivity please contact us.

Disaster: it could be as small as deleting a critical file or as big as the natural disasters that have been striking with more intensity in the past few years. Any way you look at it, disaster will strike eventually, in some form, leaving you with a problem to solve. It’s important to have a plan for when something happens.

Do you?

Most companies have at least basic protection from emergencies and disasters in place. The most common forms of protection are insurance, server and computer backup, and basic preparations as required by law. While these protective measures are considered adequate for most companies, there is still a chance a disaster will strike, leaving your company in the lurch.

In the recent months and years an increasing number of occurrences, such as the earthquake in Japan and flooding in Thailand, have caused widespread disruption to businesses. To counter this, two business initiatives have risen to the forefront: Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity Planning (BCP). In fact, these two terms have become common buzzwords, a quick internet search returns over 53 million hits on business continuity alone. The problem is that many companies are unclear on what each really is. It’s important to be clear on each topic and the basic steps to take to be prepared for any disaster.

What is a Business Continuity Plan (BCP)? BCP, first seen during the Y2K scare of the late 90s, is a plan that covers the way an organization prepares for and maintains all critical business functions. BC planning is comprised of activities that ensure maintenance, stability, and recoverability of service before, during, and after a disaster. The plan is typically set up on a day-to-day basis, and covers the whole organization.

It’s important to have a BCP for your organization because if something happens and you can’t deliver to your customers, they will go to another company.

What is Disaster Recovery? Disaster Recovery is considered a part of the overall continuity plan that focuses on the technical side of the business, including components such as data backup and recovery. Think of BCP as an umbrella and DR is under the umbrella — if you don’t have a disaster recovery plan, the overall umbrella is more or less useless.

What Should be in Your DR and BCP Plans? These plans both share a number of similarities, generally following the same steps involving the same elements. Both plans should include:

1. An operational plan for a number of disasters that could happen in your geographical area. The plans should cover occurrences as small as computer hardware errors and as large as massive natural disasters.
2. A succession plan for you or your top management.
3. Training for substitute employees on important tasks.
4. Cross training of your employees on the basics of different roles so they will be able to take over if need be.
5. A communication plan focused on different crises, including ways of communicating if networks are down.
6. Off-site meeting places for staff and managers.
7. A focus on safety. Foster partnerships and communication with local and emergency response services: Fire, Police, National Guard, Search and Rescue. Ideally, all employees should at least know basic first aid. If you have employees who are volunteer members of local Emergency Response Services, ask them to be responsible for teams.
8. Daily plans to backup your technology systems, along with training and testing of recovery of systems.
9. Training and testing of all employees to practice recovery activities in situations as realistic as possible.

It’s important that you conduct regular tests of your systems and processes, and make changes as needed. Be aware that your business is always changing and so should your Business Continuity and Disaster Recover Plans.

With a carefully prepared and practiced plan, your business should be ready to face a variety of disasters with minimal downtime. If you would like to know more about Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery please contact us.

Those who have already downloaded and started using Microsoft’s Windows 8 consumer preview may have noticed that the Metro-style version of Internet Explorer 10 has some new features that didn’t appear in the developer’s preview that Microsoft released back in September 2011.

For example, IE 10 will have both the Metro Style touch version, which is plug-in free, and a desktop version that will allow plug-ins. According to a September 2011 blog post by Microsoft’s President of Windows Division Steven Sinofsky, “The experience that plug-ins provide today is not a good match with Metro style browsing and the modern HTML5 web.”

Below is a list of the things that have changed in the six months since the release of the developer’s preview:

• Full, independent composition enables responsive, fast and fluid behavior on real websites (including pages with fixed elements, nested scrolling regions, animations, and video)
• Back and forward swipe navigation with preview
• Double-tap to zoom in on content
• Fast back and forward navigation controls for mouse
• Mouse (CTRL+scroll wheel) and keyboard methods for quickly zooming in and out to mirror touch interactions
• Automatic domain suggestions for faster navigation and less typing
• Share charm support for URLs, snippets, images and selection with Mail and other apps
• Search charm with visual search suggestions
• Devices charm for printing, projecting, and playing video to external devices like TVs
• Plug-in free support: notifications for sites requiring activeX
• Background notifications for pinned sites and other tile improvements
• Jumplists for pinned sites
• InPrivate tabs that are easier to open
• Clean up tabs command, which quickly closes all but current tab

Until Microsoft officially releases Windows 8 for wide use, these changes will only have meaning for those who have already downloaded the Windows 8 consumer preview. In the meantime, keep in mind that Microsoft promises that Web browsing with Internet Explorer 10 will be as “fast and fluid for the real Web” as it currently is for mobile users.

Are you looking for a trusted Microsoft Partner to help you with your day-to-day needs, if so, call us today at 630-960-9200.

Many companies have turned to the Internet as a way to build their brand, reach out to, and connect with customers. This means having a presence where customers are looking. When a customer wants to find out about a business, it is highly likely that the first place they go is Google. One of the most powerful apps businesses can use to get their name out there is Google Places. Are you using Google Places with your business?

Places, introduced in 2009, is actually two different services. The first service, is essentially a mini website, within Google, for local businesses with contact information, reviews, pictures, nearest transit stop, street view, and so on. Google realized that when people want to find a business or service they will typically type in the service and their location – e.g., if a person is in Chicago, and wants to find a law firm, they will typically enter something like: Law Firm Chicago.

Using Places, businesses in a particular area will be ranked to appear higher in search results if the user is in the same general area. While the results show up on search results, Places is actually a part of Google Maps. If a business has signed up, and provided their info, it will also show up as a pinpoint when a relevant search query is entered in Google Maps. The best part of Places is that it is free for businesses.

The second service is the Places App. This app is for everybody and is similar to popular local search services like Foursquare. You enter a search in Places and, based on your location and search, results will show up with the closest result first. People can call, email, review, and even suggest businesses. Places is available in Google search results, Google Maps and as a standalone App for smartphones.

How Do I Get My Business On Places?

If you are interested in getting your business on to Places you will need to get a few things ready before you apply:

1. A Google account: You will need a Google account that is related to your business. If you do not have one, it is free to sign up.
2. Any content you would like to show up on your Places page, including pictures, basic brochures or product information, and if you have them, videos. The more precise your information is, the better your organic result will be.

After you have your information ready, head over to the Places website and click Get Started. From there it’s as simple as following the on-screen prompts, and then waiting for Google to put your Places page online. Once it’s online you will be able to update information in real time, and be on the way to generating more customers.

Watch Out! Common Mistakes Made by Businesses
Here are four common mistakes business often make when establishing their Places profile:

• Unclear Keywords: Places lets you select keywords and categories for your business. Many businesses make the mistake of selecting categories that don’t fit their business model, and this will potentially confuse viewers, resulting in many needless calls and emails about your services. Google Places allows a maximum of five categories. We suggest picking one or two pre-built options, (if there are similar ones to your business model), and three custom ones. Try to develop keywords that specify exactly what you do.
• Get the Basics Right: The mobile version of Places allows and encourages users to call businesses. Therefore, it is important you have not only the right phone number, but the right format. If you don’t have it, no one will be able to contact you. Also, ensure you are using the correct name for your company. Put the name of your business as it is registered with your phone and Internet Company.
• Proper Citations: Citations are references to your business that, when used correctly, help place your business higher in local search results. It is important that when building citations your company name, phone number and other information are exactly the same as what you have listed on Places. If you have used N.W. in Places, and on another site  like Yelp, you have cited your business address with North West, the results will be diminished and your business will show up lower in search results.
• Too Many Chiefs, Not Enough Indians: It is important that you limit the number of people who have access to the account you use for your Places page. The more people who have access, the higher the chance your information can be changed, often with negative results.

Places, if leveraged right, is a great way to help boost your online presence and marketing potential. If you would like to learn more about Google Places or some other ways to gain visibility, please reach out to us at 630-960-9200.

With mobile devices becoming more accessible, many are finding it more comfortable and more productive to use these devices not only for personal purposes, but also for work. This may seem to be a good thing initially, but it also means that you have less control over the way these devices access your IT system. The best thing to do is to have a good IT security policy in place to make sure that important company data is not compromised.

As technology continues to become more affordable and accessible to consumers, it’s an inevitable fact that employers will see more and more of their employees using their own personal devices such as laptops and mobile phones to access the company’s IT system.

This can be a dangerous thing. Since these devices aren’t company owned and regulated, you have limited access and control over how they are used. Employees could download all sorts of malware and viruses on their devices and pass the infection along to your IT system when they access it.

The solution: a comprehensive IT security policy. It’s important that you find a compromise between the freedom of the employee to use the device as desired and your need to keep your IT system safe from viruses and other threats to your data’s security. Steps such as having employees run mobile device management (MDM) software on their devices is one of many actions you can take to lessen the risk of security breaches. You may also want to implement applications and software that check and screen for malware, both for laptops and mobile devices. And don’t forget that while Android seems to have a bigger problem with malicious software, Apple isn’t exactly virus-free, either.

Employees have a right to use their personal devices as they see fit, but not at the expense of important company information stored in your IT system. Running a tight ship in terms of security is an effective way to protect your business interests and your sensitive company data. If you are interested in knowing more about developing a concrete and effective IT security policy for personal device use as well as general system access, please don’t hesitate to give us a call so we can sit down with you and discuss a custom security blueprint that’s just right for you.