This one isn’t tech related, but it did resonate with me, and I wanted to share. I believe that one of the most important challenges put to us both as individuals, and as a business, is to discover our Authentic Self, and work out how to be true to that. Never heard of the Authentic Self? Google it. Everyone has their own definition, but that’s part of the puzzle. What’s your Authentic Self? Ask a therapist, a Taoist and a marketing manager, and you’ll get three very different, but very similar responses.

As one person commented on the original TED site that this video links to, this presents a poetic similarity to the Tao Te Ching…

To be whole, let yourself break.
To be straight, let yourself bend.
To be full, let yourself be empty.
To be new, let yourself wear out.
To have everything, give everything up.

Knowing others is a kind of knowledge;
knowing yourself is wisdom.
Conquering others requires strength;
conquering yourself is true power.
To realize that you have enough is true wealth.
Pushing ahead may succeed,
but staying put brings endurance.
Die without perishing, and find the eternal.

 
To know that you do not know is strength.
Not knowing that you do not know is a sickness.
The cure begins with the recognition of the sickness.

Knowing what is permanent: enlightenment.
Not knowing what is permanent: disaster.
Knowing what is permanent opens the mind.
Open mind, open heart.
Open heart, magnanimity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching

Aside from being the hot topic of 2011, the phrase Cloud Computing has to be the single most misused and misunderstood of all time. According to Wikipedia, cloud computing is “…a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources”. Easy, huh?

In real terms, Cloud Computing can be compared to an electricity supply. You want power? Turn on a switch. As the consumer, you don’t need to worry about how the power is being generated, where the power station is, if it has enough capacity, and so on. And you certainly don’t need to own your own power station to generate the electricity you use. All of that is someone else’s problem; you simply pay for what you use.

Cloud Computing in the true sense of the word is the same. Need another email address? No problem, here you go, that’s $9.95 per month please. No need to purchase the email server to host it on, no need to make sure you’ve purchased enough licenses from Microsoft, and no need to have an email server sitting in your office.

Now Cloud Computing is nothing new. Think of services such as Hotmail, and Gmail. Perfect examples of Cloud Computing that we’re all familiar with. Need a Hotmail account? Easy, go sign up. Does Hotmail have enough server capacity for your new account? Not your problem. Back in the heady days of the dot com boom, Cloud Computing was called ASP (Application Service Provision), but back then the idea was ahead of the technology and it didn’t really stick. This time though, it’s here to stay. The technology is now up to the task of delivering on the promise, with more Cloud based services arriving every day. Check out http://www.37signals.com/ for some great examples of powerful business applications made available under a cloud model.

Cloud Computing sounds great, and to listen to the marketers you’d think it was the silver bullet to solve all computing problems. As always with such promises, the reality doesn’t always meet the expectations. For starters you will continue to need IT support (and we’re not just saying that so you’ll keep us around). Just because the email server (to continue our example) isn’t in your office, your computers still need to be managed, accounts created and removed, and so on. The other important point to consider is the safety and security of your information, and reliability of the cloud you are depending on. Horror stories regularly emerge of businesses losing their vital information because a cloud provider suffered a major failure, or of services being offline and unavailable for extended periods. Even Microsoft have had some well publicised challenges keeping their own cloud offering online.

Cloud Computing is an exciting part of the technology landscape that may be able to help your business reduce costs and improve services in some cases, but it may not be appropriate in all situations. Grassroots IT is experienced in analysing business needs and assessing the viability of cloud based services for your business. If you think your business may benefit, talk to us today.

Now I know I’m opening myself up to a bit of controversy here but I really want to share with you a funky little tool in Outlook that helps me smash through my work at an astonishing pace, it’s called ‘Quick Parts’.

Quick Parts is essentially a ‘Canned Response’ tool in Outlook 2010… here comes the controversy… I completely understand the argument that automation can de-humanise certain interactions but when you have to relay the same sort of information several times a day, week or even month I think it’s worth saving yourself some time, implementing some automation and getting on with your life.

So how does it work? Well I’m glad you asked…

Firstly open up a new email message like so:
Now type the text in the body of the email which you find yourself frequently typing.

It’s a good idea to make this as generic as possible so as to not look like a fool if you accidentally hit send before personalising.

For example:
‘Hi,
Thank you so much for your order. We’ll get the ball rolling ASAP!
Kind regards
Joe’

This also allows you to personalise the email before it’s sent so that it’s not so generic:
‘Hey You,
Thank you so much for your licensing order. Licensing usually takes between 48-72 hours to come through.
We’ll get the ball rolling ASAP!
Kind regards
Joe’

See what I did there?

Now to saving the generic text so that you can use it over and over again.

Simply highlight the text you would like saved and open the Insert Tab.

Then click on ‘Save selection to Quick Parts Gallery‘

When the ‘Create New Building Block’ dialogue box comes up, give your new Quick Parts entry a meaningful name such as ‘Order approval’ and enter a description if you wish, then press OK.

And voilà you’re done! AND you can save as many as you like!

Next time you need to enter that text simply click insert > Quick Parts > Then select the saved item you wish to insert. If you want to, you can then put extra details in to personalise the email and then send.

Happy automating!

So many things to celebrate… birthdays, anniversaries, and the end of this financial year. Onwards and upwards! Here’s our latest newsletter, straight from the Garden Shed. Happy EOFY to you!

Internet Explorer has had a facelift. With the tagline ‘a more beautiful web’, Microsoft has just launched Internet Explorer version 9 with a number of new features. Looking suspiciously like Google Chrome (Google’s equivalent of IE), IE9 is boasting to be faster, cleaner and more trusted than previous versions. Some of the more notable in the list of improved features are:

• a new ‘tab page’ which gives quick access to the websites we most regularly use;
• the use of ‘one box’ for both entering website addresses (URLs) and doing an internet search (ie. you use the one box to either type in ‘www.microsoft.com’ type in ‘Microsoft’ for search results to then appear, rather than typing in the Google URL and THEN doing a search);
• and ‘pinned sites’, where you can pin a particular website to your toolbar, just as you would any computer program.

These are the more aesthetic changes, but there are a few more technical changes in regard to how it works on the back end too, apparently. If you are a Managed client of Grassroots IT, your browser will automatically be updated in time through one of our regular scheduled updates of your system. If not, you can download IE9 from here and be running the latest version of Internet Explorer in a flash. Let us know if you need any help.

In this new digital world we live in, often we need to explain to our co-workers, employees, clients and managers how we do particular tasks on our computers. Sometimes this can be done quickly and easily via an email or a phone call but sometimes words just aren’t enough… Enter Jing!

Jing is a program that allows you to take screen captures (pictures of what’s on your screen) and edit them (within Jing, Snagit or Camtasia), or even take a video of what you’re doing on your screen. This video can include narration to explain each step of the process as you go - it’s like calling someone over to your desk without actually having to have them at your desk. This allows the user to refer back to the video when required, and pause and rewind as necessary. You can create the video at your convenience and your recipient can view it when they need to, so no more trying to squeeze people into your already busy schedules.

Jing can also be an extremely useful tool to use when interacting with Grassroots IT. Say for example, there’s an error occurring every time you open a word document from a certain location. You can click your Jing icon and take a video of exactly what you’re doing and shoot it through to our super helpful technicians and it’s like they were there to witness the tragedy and can get straight to work fixing it.

Best of all there’s a FREE version which allows you to take up to 5 minute videos, but the professional version with a greater range of features is only $14.95 per year. Check out the demonstration video for a better idea of how Jing can work for you.