How to improve your company’s email system

The development of email has revolutionised the face of contemporary business, offering companies a fast, effective and borderless form of communication. The service has evolved in leaps and bounds since its early stages, with modern day users enjoying increased efficiency and flexibility that has never before been possible. Yet despite the cutting edge advancements, many companies still lag behind when it comes to making the most of email communication.

To help you improve your company’s email system, we’ve come up with this useful collection of suggestions that will ensure you, your employees and your business are taking full advantage of electronic mail.

Email security

While email offers unparalleled convenience and efficiency, the move to digital communications also presents a range of complex security threats. From malware, spam and phishing to DDoS attacks, data leakage and social engineering assaults, inbound and outbound email borne threats are a serious issue that every company should address.

A stringent security solution is particularly vital for companies dealing with sensitive dataand classified customer information such as credit card details or personal health records. The key is to enlist the services of a trusted email security provider with proven experience in managing risks without jeopardising productivity.

Large file sending

Despite the extensive benefits of email, many providers have not yet mastered the art of offering users large file sending capacity. It is an issue continually faced by email users who often struggle to share important content with email contacts due to pre-set file size sending limits. This forces users to resort to unofficial consumer applications, most of which lack adequate security, policy enforcement and archiving protection.

This not only endangers the security of company files but can also break serious compliance regulations. Mimecast offers an intelligent solution to the wide felt issue, its large file sending service providing a secure and reliable answer to bypassing corporate restrictions on file size limits. Compatible with Exchange and Office 365, the service allows IT departments to retain control while offering employees complete flexibility over email operations.  

Email archiving

With the rise of email has come the increased need to keep digital records in place of traditional paper documents. This is a critical part of modern day business, with some sectors legally required to uphold comprehensive email archiving records. Barclays Capital Inc is the latest company to fall victim to non-compliance offence, the enterprise was recently fined US$3.75 million by the The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for failing to preserve electronic records, emails and instant messages. As well as regulatory compliance, instant access to email history also plays an important role in maximising employee productivity and easing the burden on email servers. As such, it is critical for companies to have an effective email archiving strategy in place. An increasing number of businesses are turning to cloud archiving technology, won over by its efficiency, cost effectiveness and unmatched flexibility.  

By following these three simple tips, you can empower your company with a secure, efficient and compliant email system that will help your business reach its full potential.

Most Popular Tech Creations this Century

In the 21st century the rate of change is faster than ever. When people in the year 2100 look back on our century, who knows what advancements they will celebrate. Although we are only 14 years in and there is still a long way to go, this century has already witnessed technological changes that affect everyone’s lives. Here are just a few:

Smart Phones

The iPhone was introduced in January 2007 and Google’s Android software for smart phones was introduced in 2008. It’s hard to believe that modern smart phones are less than a decade old, and they just keep getting more useful, with millions of apps available for both platforms to add just about any feature imaginable. The multi-touch screens, GPS, and ever faster connectivity mean that you can use your smartphone as everything from a GPS for driving directions, a small television, a game console, or a communications platform for Facebook, messaging, and video calling. The introduction of smart phones means you can truly be connected to the Internet just about any time, anywhere.

Tablet Computers

Tablet computers may not be entirely new, but the introduction of Apple’s iPad in 2010 made them a sought after device that can perform many of the functions of a larger, heavier laptop. Early tablets were mostly devices for consuming media, whether reading books or watching movies. But with the introduction of better and faster chipsets and the creation of new apps, today’s tablets can be used to create business documents, edit videos, or store a doctor’s searchable library of medical texts for diagnosis.

Image Credit: Sam Churchill

Image Credit: Sam Churchill

Driverless Cars

Google has created a car that can drive itself, a concept that has furthered advances in computer traffic grid systems and other near-future set ups. The goal is to reduce driver accidents by allowing some, or all parts of a journey, to be handled automatically. The Google car is a Toyota Prius outfitted with cameras, radar sensors, and a laser range finder to help it navigate through city streets. The car has been reported to have travelled 140,000 miles in a publicity tour without ever having an accident.

Image Credit: Intel Free Press

Image Credit: Intel Free Press

Ultra Light Laptops

With more power than a tablet but still incredibly thin and light, ultra thin computers such as the Toshiba Kira Laptop have changed the face of laptop computing. These laptops typically use low-power Intel processors, solid-state drives, and a unibody construction to make the smallest, lightest product possible. The MacBook Air was introduced in 2008 and today there are dozens of ultrabook makers in the market. Click here for more information on adding the speed andportability of an ultrabook to your technology tools.

Image Credit: Jason Howie

Image Credit: Jason Howie

Social Media

Who could have predicted when Facebook launched back in 2004 that it would have over 600 million users in less than a decade? Or that YouTube, launched in 2005, would soon boast over 4 billion videos viewed every day. Social media has invaded and changed every aspect of Internetculture, from how you connect with friends to how products are marketed.

Top Tips to help you afford the latest gadgets

There’s only so much you can expect from people on your birthday and at Christmas, isn’t there? So how can you get hold of the latest tech on the market? How can you be the owner of an X-Box One or a PlayStation 4? Here is our guide to the best ways to be able to afford the latest gadgets on the market.

Make a trade.

There are plenty of high street stores that will buy your old gadgets off you: CEX and Game being two prime examples. There are also a plethora of online stores that will do the same, from Music Magpie to Mazuma Mobile. Most of these places pay cash or cheque, meaning that if you have a treasure trove of unwanted old technology, you can trade it in and maybe put a bit of that money towards something brand new.

Save up.

The dreaded word: savings. Before you start to try and explain how little money you have in the first place, and how you don’t save, think of it this way. If you put away £50 a month, in eight months, you’ll have enough for that brand new PS4 you’ve been after. That’s not so long, and it’s not that much to put aside. A few nights out, a game, that’s all it costs each month to afford it. Saving money might not be the easiest way to afford something new, and it might not be the quickest, but it is the safest. You don’t rely on another company to give you money, or to value your old tech, and you don’t have to pay anything back with interest.

Take out a loan.

The last option also seems like the easiest and quickest option. You can take out a loan for the value of whatever it is that you want, the money will be in your account quickly, and you’ll be able to spend it instantly. Of course, you’ll have to pay it back, but then, you’ll have the gadgets or tech that you were after in the first place. If you do consider going down the loan route, then you might be interested in Totally Money’s ‘Cheapest Ways to Borrow’ tool, which can help you work out the least expensive way to borrow money for your situation. It may suggest a credit card is the cheapest way or if you’re looking at paying it off over a really long time, a loan may be for you.

Best World Cup Apps

With the 2014 World Cup fast approaching, passionate fans will be able to savour a football-filled summer as the best players in the world will swap their domestic duties at the end of the season to put on the national shirt and represent their country with pride. Billions of people across the world will, once again, be glued to their television sets across households and pubs as they cheer their national side onto potentially glory in Brazil. 3.2 billion tuned in to watch the drama unfold during South Africa 2010, with viewing figures set to be even bigger for Brazil 2014 as the four year wait for the most prestigious tournament in football is over.

Image courtesy of http://pixabay.com/

Image courtesy of http://pixabay.com/

Innovative technology now allows football fans to keep tabs on everything related to the World Cup, with a plethora of downloadable apps available to smartphone and tablet users who can access the latest stories, live streams and on-demand highlights, and live score reports whilst on the go. It allows fans to keep glued to the action wherever they are, whether it is during a long commute or waiting for a doctor’s appointment, which is particularly invaluable when they cannot see the action unfold on television. World Cup apps allow users to enter a world of football at the touch of a screen, with the best options providing the best quality betting service, live score system and trending news stories which include who will be included in Roy Hodgson’s 23-man squad for Brazil 2014 and the odds on crouch to get a recall?

Official FIFA app
The official FIFA app is the perfect download for every football fanatic who wishes to keep in touch with everything that is happening throughout this summer’s World Cup. Available in five languages, the multi-purpose app also covers every domestic league across the world via a live score system, league tables and fixtures to ensure you remain up-to-date across the football world. The app also allows users to watch live matches through extensive tournament coverage, with official FIFA stories and highlights provided after the action has ended on the pitch. Football fans can also benefit from receiving live score updates as goals fly in during the World Cup, which includes the goal-scorer and minute it was scored which can be handy for football punters who have a bet on and, more importantly, for those on the go.

Coral
Gambling via smartphone and tablet devices has further revolutionised the multi-billion gambling industry in providing punters with a more convenient and efficient method to place bets at their own discretion. The Coral app perfectly condenses their desktop service onto handheld devices which allow users to gamble during the World Cup whilst on the go without having to sit in front of a computer or travel to their local bookmaker office. Coral’s mobile app provides a comprehensive selection of betting markets to choose from, such as tournament top scorer and outright World Cup winner, to ensure football punter can enjoy the very best gambling experience during every game. Their service is supported through a live in-play market that offer regularly updated odds during each World Cup game, thus offering more opportunity for football fans to enjoy the action and potentially win variable amounts of money in the process.

LiveScore
Keeping tabs on the latest football scores is arguably the prime use for football apps by fans who wish to be up-to-date across every domestic and international fixture. The LiveScore app is a simplistic, yet effective, app that allows you to access a wealth of football scores across the world, and is regularly updated minute-by-minute. Its layout is filtered through each domestic league and international tournament, with the screen packed with latest, half-time and full-time scorelines. Tapping on each score bar can allow users to see which players have scored, who provided an assist if there is one, and yellow and red cards that are branded by the referee during the game. LiveScore can be utilised through Brazil 2014 as a direct portal to the latest scores which keep you instantly informed on how well teams are doing in every game, and whether your home nation are set to go all the way to the Final.

Think before you tweet

It’s so easy to make a status update on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook that many of us do it without really thinking about it. Whilst this is okay for general status updates or tweeting about that delicious sub that you had for lunch, it can be problematic when you write a badly timed joke or something that you may think is harmless fun but actually has great consequences.

This week the internet learned of a teenage girl in the Netherlands that for some reason though it would be a good idea to tweet a terrorist threat to one of America’s biggest Airlines. Whilst I’m pretty sure Sarah or (@QueenDemetriax_) as she is known on Twitter had no idea of the seriousness of her actions, she must have known that this wasn’t going to end well? Shortly after receiving the tweets American Airlines responded to her pointing out the seriousness of the threat and informed her that they would be passing her details on to the FBI.

Upon receiving the message from American Airlines it seems that Sarah quickly realised the seriousness of her actions and began to plead with the Airline to not take the matter any further stating that she was just a girl and not from Afghanistan or a member of “Al qaida”. The initial message from American Airlines claimed that they had Sarah’s IP address and that they would be passing this onto the FBI, something which isn’t actually within the power of American Airlines. A Twitter spokesman later confirmed that the Airline didn’t have access to the IP or other details of the girl and that only a law enforcement agency could request such information from Twitter.

Sarah was arrested following the incident by Police in Rotterdam and investigations are still ongoing. I sincerely hope that this incident is a warning to others about the serious implications that can happen as a result of what we say on social networks. If you're unsure if the tweet you are about to send is inappropriate or likely to cause any repercussions the safest and most sensible thing to do is not post it.

Back in February there was a video uploaded to Geekanoids titled ‘think before you tweet’ which although it talks about businesses and banks looking at your Twitter account before making a decision on offering a loan or employment, it still hammers home the importance of thinking before you tweet so I have included the video below for reference.

 

Mozilla boss quits after gay marriage storm

Mozilla - Brendan EichYou may recall that earlier this week that OkCupid the dating website started displaying a message to their users who were accessing the site via the Firefox web browser. The message brought to the attention of users the fact that Mozilla’s CEO was an opponent of Gay Marriage which OkCupid stated was something they couldn’t support as the company was dedicated to bringing people together regardless of sexual orientation. The full statement reads:

Hello there, Mozilla Firefox user. Pardon this interruption of your OkCupid experience. Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid.

Politics is normally not the business of a website, and we all know there’s a lot more wrong with the world than misguided CEOs. So you might wonder why we’re asserting ourselves today. This is why: we’ve devoted the last ten years to bringing people—all people—together. If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we’ve worked so hard to bring about would be illegal. Equality for gay relationships is personally important to many of us here at OkCupid. But it’s professionally important to the entire company.

OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure.

If you want to keep using Firefox, the link at the bottom will take you through to the site.

However, we urge you to consider different software for accessing OkCupid:

[Google Chrome] [Internet Exploder] [Opera] [Safari]

Thank you,

OkCupid

Mozilla responded saying that they pride themselves on being held to a different standard and appologised that they hadn’t lived up to it on this occasion. They went on to apologize for not moving forward fast enough once the controversy started.

Fast forward a couple of days and we can confirm that Brendan Eich has resigned from Mozilla with immediate effect. Mr Eich, who co-founded Mozilla and was also known for being the creator of the JavaScript scripting language, made a $1,000 (£600) donation back in 2008 in support of California's Proposition 8 anti-gay law. Although this was originally passed it was overturned by the US Supreme court in 2013.

The appointment of Mr Eich was publically announced on 24 March and was met with much criticism on Twitter and other social networks but it wasn’t until OkCupid stepped in that things started heat up.

Mozilla has been losing users to other browsers over the years particularly since the launch of Google Chrome and is having a tough time trying to hold onto it’s users so this recent blow to the company certainly won’t be doing them any favors. With all but the most loyal fans and developers choosing Google Chrome, Mozilla really needs to up it’s game and avoid PR disasters like this one.

Do you still use Firefox or have you moved over to Chrome or one of the other browsers? Personally the only time I use Firefox now is when I’m doing cross browser testing and with UserAgent switchers improving in the Chrome WebStore this may become a thing of the past too. As usual we would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

 

Yahoo! poaching YouTube content creators?

Yahoo has made a number of radical changes since Marissa Mayer took over the helm back in May 2012, Including the acquisition of Tumblr for $1.1 billion in May of last year. Since then Yahoo! Have rebranded many of their services such as Flickr and more recently their logo. In Yahoo's latest bid to stay relevant in a world where Google and other giants dominate they are turning their attentions to online video creators and in particular YouTube content creators.

Yahoo! Is reportedly looking to create an alternative to YouTube has reportedly began to try and lure away some of the most successful YouTube creators to join them with the promise of making more money. Yahoo hopes that offering better ad revenues, guaranteed advertisement rates and extensive marketing will lure away some of the content creators away from YouTube and the mighty Google.

Marissa has been particularly interested in video since taking over at Yahoo! and has signed some big partnership deals and releasing content through a new app called Yahoo! Screen. In today’s report by ReCode the new video competitor would have a similar focus and look to poach big YouTube stars rather than launching and open to all service. Whilst there is no solid date for a launch Yahoo! is said to be launching this new service in the coming months.

What are you thoughts on Yahoo’s venture into YouTube’s territory? As usual we would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.