Today I am providing some answers to common questions we get asked and not just focusing on Windows 10. However I will have one little Windows 10 section as well for those who have updated already.

Are you actually harnessing the power of Office 365?

When you made the strategic decision to move some or all of your business to the cloud with Microsoft Office 365 that was a good call. But since you made that call have you actually extracted as much value from this tool as possible, or is a large part of your investment lying there just untapped?

With our free customer audits we offer the opportunity to discuss what you have in place and what you don’t but could be utilising. Here’s a quick checklist. Are you utilising the power of these products?

Contact us now to if you haven’t had your free audit or want to know more about any of these products.

SEO Is no longer an option for business it’s a Must

Here is a fairly long explanation of what SEO actually is if you ever wondered just what those telemarketers are offering when they ring up and say they can put you on the front page of Google. I debunk the myths and explain the actual science of SEO so business owners can understand it.

Definitions

• SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – commonly referred to as getting on page one of Google for a search. However there is a lot more to it than that. It is actually about ensuring that the website has all the components in place to assist the search engine crawlers (Bing Yahoo and Google) to rank you correctly. There are a number of components and I have attached a cheat sheet that describes most of these. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
• SEM – Search Engine Marketing – paying for ranking improvements by the use of AdWords, Click marketing and other techniques.
• SMM – Social Media Marketing – very broad term around utilising social media as a marketing tool
• Black hat SEO – refers to aggressive and often “bad” methods of attempting to “game” the crawler algorithms by taking advantage of them. Usually a short-lived approach and is generally only used by the scammers – those who call up in a foreign accent and tell you they want to help you improve your SEO. While these often work well for 1-2 months the end result is usually a lower result as you can get blacklisted for doing it.
• White hat SEO – the professional approach to doing it right using known techniques that actually work.

Measurement

There are some easy ways to define measurement and then a whole range of additional metrics that are far more in depth and specific. The first task is of course a goal or goals that need to be set in order to measure improvement of the metrics against those goals. For example measuring the number of people who come to the site isn’t really relevant without adding in calls to action and then measuring those calls to action. Then you can determine if a particular piece of work changed any of those things.

Using Google analytics is extremely important and should be enabled by your web developer. If you are not sure ask us. Metric management is about tracking the specific stats against a goal and the changes as you do things. Google analytics can measure how many people clicked on the contact form page and how long they stayed there, where they came from and where they went next. Some of the specific things that can be measured external to the google analytics are the number of enquiries you receive from the website forms. This can then help us create a ratio as follows:

no of people viewing a sales page : no of people clicking from the sales page with a call to action to the contact form page : no of enquiry forms received : your conversion from those enquiries to sales. Example 1000:150:8:5

This then allows you to set a goal around that ratio metric – e.g. increase the numbers or improve the ratios.

The actual measurement then requires three things:

1. A measureable goal
2. The stats being collected from the website
3. And the additional stats provided by yourselves.

Additionally Goals themselves should be what is known as SMART goals:

Creating S.M.A.R.T. Goals

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

Specific: A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six “W” questions:

• Who: Who is involved?
• What: What do I want to accomplish?
• Where: Identify a location.
• When: Establish a time frame.
• Which: Identify requirements and constraints.
• Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, “Get in shape.” But a specific goal would say, “Join a health club and workout 3 days a week.”

Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.

To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as……

How much? How many?

How will I know when it is accomplished?

Attainable – When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.

You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them.

Realistic- To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress.

A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labour of love.

Timely – A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there’s no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? “Someday” won’t work. But if you anchor it within a timeframe, “by May 1st”, then you’ve set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.

Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

T can also stand for Tangible – A goal is tangible when you can experience it with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing.

When your goal is tangible you have a better chance of making it specific and measurable and thus attainable.

How do we do this?

SEO is primarily about two things – Content and Currency.

Search engines rank you for the content on your site. They crawl words within context looking for relevancy. They look for timeliness or recentness.

This has to be developed backwards from the goals.

First you have to develop an avatar or a generic target customer. You create a mythical person who is your ideal next customer – the person you want to be having that phone call with selling your services. Once you identify the problem that person has that you can solve for them, then you need to work out how they find you. E.g. what was the problem? What words did they type into google to start finding solutions to the problem? How did that then find your website? When they found your website (page on your site) how well did the words you wrote confirm for them that you know how to solve their problem and convince them to contact you?

This leads you or us then to the ability to write content for your site that meets this objective. The more pages that can be written describing the real problems your customers have and how your company solves them. The more keywords there are that can be crawled by the search engines and the higher you will rank for those keywords. Adding in external links and other reference material, and then being referenced by other sites, analysts, uni students doing assignments on that problem and writing websites about them, etc. will help your rankings.

SEM – paying for it

A natural extension to the first component is to start paying for the results using AdWords and click marketing. E.g. paying for your site to be ranked higher or in suggested or advertised results sections on searches for certain keywords. Note there is no point doing this until you are already ranking well for those keywords. Your site needs to already have good content with those words before you can do this effectively.

SMM or Social Media Marketing

A powerful tool to massively leverage the ability for people to find your content and also improve SEO is SMM. This is extending the content you write on your site out into social media space – LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter are probably the best places and definitely Facebook as well. Each space has a different set of “rules” and ways to work and Twitter and Facebook also have the ability for you to pay money to advertise.

How do we help?

We have a very specific targeted approach to this and can assist at any one of three levels:

• We can do everything for you including writing the articles
• We can assist you by doing the technical and web stuff after you have written the content yourself
• We can teach you how to do it yourself and then stand back and let you go to it on your own.

Our approach is simple.

The first step is to have a planning meeting where we assist in working out goals, setting a timetable of 6-12 months for content creation, determining the scope – e.g. website alone or extending to Social Media

From there we can help you work out who does what and what the cost will be.

Each step we take helps you identify the goals, how will measure it – who does what and how much it will cost. No black box “pay $40 a week and we will get you onto page 1” false promises.

Contact us today if you want a free analysis of your website for the 7 most common mistakes most business websites make (Usually $199). If you want a free SEO cheat sheet email and I will send one to you.

Is Your WordPress site secure?

WordPress is one of the most popular CMS (Content Management System) website software out there. We have developed a lot of WordPress sites for our clients. What many people don't realise is that both the WordPress core system and all of the available WordPress plugins are vulnerable to hacking, and need to be monitored and kept up to date on a regular basis.

Keeping your website up to date will help safeguard and eliminate uninvited intruders or bugs on your site.

Nearly all of our clients take the approach to allow us to manage all aspects of the domain name management, hosting, development and ongoing maintenance. However we do allow our clients the flexibility to host elsewhere, manage the site and maintenance themselves if they wish.

Obviously we can’t be responsible for their site if issues occur if they’re choosing to host elsewhere or managing the site themselves. And unfortunately some people fail to keep their ‘versions’ of software and plugins up to date, again causing possible opportunities for hacking. The lack of updates, coupled with poor hosting environments can leave a website wide-open for security threats.

But time and time again, we have clients who do it themselves come to us pleading for us to help them out of a horrible hosting mess or to fix the site when it gets hacked or goes down.

Where there are WordPress sites there are hackers, and over time we’ve seen an increasing number of hacking attempts and malware on WordPress sites. We daily get reports from our managed sites indicating the targeted attacks occurring and the successful blocking of those attempts.

What Jethro does for our managed WordPress clients

• Our servers are entirely owned and managed by us. There are no other resellers or websites on the server that we don’t have control of. When you host with crazy domains or any of the other cheap hosts you are subject to the fact that there are hundreds of not thousands of other sites on the same server – and while your site might not have any issues something happening to one of those other sites might cause your server to go down.
• We monitor the servers constantly. Both at the server level where we receive text message and email notifications if something occurs, and at individual site level.
• We harden the security of the default WordPress site way beyond the standard install. The standard install script most hosters offer for DIY leaves folders unprotected, easily guessable admin user names and no usually no password complexity requirements. We ensure that the site is as hard as possible to get to.
• We don’t install 35 “that might be nice to have” plugins that may cause compatibility issues, security flaws or other issues. Every plugin we use has been tested over a long period of time, is compatible and has good developer maintenance.
• We offer a maintenance service level agreement for all our clients that includes regular off server backups, plugin and core updates, documentation of all changes made and easy recovery if problems occur and active monitoring of the site.

Talk to us today about your WordPress website and ask us for a quick analysis of the site for potential problems. Better yet let us maintain this business asset for as little as $550 a year.

Welcome to the New Windows 10

Your Start screen

The Start menu is back—and it’s more personal, more organized, and more fun than before. Go to Start Windows logo icon on the taskbar on your keyboard. You'll find your most used apps on the left, the All apps list, and shortcuts to other locations on your PC, like File Explorer and Settings

Windows 10 Store

The Store is a one-stop shop for music, videos, games, and apps.

Try out an app before you buy it, or pick a free one. Your Windows 10 apps will work on all your Windows 10 devices.

Application Switcher and Virtual Desktops

Click the application switcher for quick access to all your running apps. Or create and switch between virtual desktops.

Follow us on Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces then connect with me:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/spyjournal technology, cycling, social media, management, business, and web
• Linked In http://www.linkedin.com/in/jethromanagement
• Delicious https://delicious.com/jethrocon saved links
• Blog http://spyjournal.biz/ all sorts of stuff including personal and family updates
• Spyjournal Facebook https://www.facebook.com/spyjournal.biz tech, cycling, and other stuff
• Subscribe to our daily Newspaper https://paper.li/spyjournal/1345852972
• Subscribe to our weekly Newspaper https://paper.li/spyjournal/1345853288
• Jethro Management Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JethroManagement business, management, web
• Jethro Marketing Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JethroMarketing social media, marketing
• Dreamcoat Photography Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DreamcoatPhotography
• Dreamsport Photography Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DreamSportPhotography
• Red Hot Snapper Facebook https://www.facebook.com/redhotsnapper roller derby

All content © Tim Miller. Feel free to share or send these emails on. If you want to unsubscribe just reply with Unsubscribe in the subject.

Did you know that Windows 10 is being released tomorrow?

The world’s largest Software as a Service SaaS operating system release ever also marks the end of Windows as we know it. It will never again be released as an operating system the way we have known it up until now. Rather the company will begin releasing upgrades and future “versions” as streamed updates. I will talk about some of the changes in this edition as well as some important information. There are also some important changes for our Office 365 customers and I mention them also.

Telstra Increases Office 365 Pricing in line with Microsoft Changes

Telstra announced a couple of days ago that they will be increasing Office 365 pricing across the board in line with Global Microsoft Price changes. However there are some important things to know.

First of all while Microsoft changes are as of 1 August, Telstra isn’t changing until 1 September so you get 1 more month to buy additional licences at the old price.

Second, the changes only impact you when you end your current contract period (this is the 12 month anniversary of your original subscription date).

When you login to Telstra Apps Marketplace you should be able to see a table that lists your services and the contract period. This Telstra Apps Marketplace FAQ webpage has step by step instructions on how to see this.

Contact us now if you would like to learn more about taking advantage of the current pricing or how the new pricing changes coming in September will affect you.

Windows 10 is Coming Tomorrow

In a major change starting 29^th July 2015 Microsoft is ending the Operating System version process as we have known it since at least 1995 when they released Windows 95. From now on all updates will be released as they are tested and made available to all users around the world via the internet. No longer will your operating system be old or out of date. For a 12 month period all existing Windows 7 and Windows 8 /8.1 users will be able to upgrade to Windows 19 for free as well. New machines will be sold with Windows 10 installed and will then update online to the current version.

The upgrade process is fairly simple. Once the upgrades are made available to you (there is a staged release cycle so not everyone will get it on the 29^th necessarily) your computer will run preliminary checks to ensure that both the existing hardware is capable of supporting Windows 10 and that you have no known issues with the upgrade. The upgrade will commence and the existing operating system will be rolled back if it experiences problems. There will be no loss of data in either case. Applications will continue to work and your connected peripherals (providing they are compatible) will continue working.

We are recommending that customers ask us to run this for them. Of course if you want to do it yourself you can and we don’t anticipate issues for those of you who are not running server based networks. We suggest waiting for all those businesses with a server and asking us to book a time to manage the upgrade over a weekend or some other time when we can have the least down time for your staff.

Talk to us about Upgrading today. We are anticipating a number of our customers to upgrade from Windows 7 fairly soon so will need to book you in sometime in August or September.

We have some special deals – we will charge only $149 for a single machine upgrade (ensuring we have a backup first). Talk to us about bulk machine pricing.

Windows 10 Changes from Windows 7 and 8 /8.1

One of the biggest changes is the revised start screen. It brings back the familiar Windows 7 interface with windows 8.1 live tiles. It is fully customisable and apps can be dragged and dropped, resized and added to groups. Unlike Windows 8 this start screen personalisation will not sync to all your devices as individual devices have different uses and different screen sizes so can be personalised individually.

Note all the familiar icons can be pinned to the taskbar as in 7 and 8. The new icon directly to the right of the search box is the app switcher – allowing the ALT TAB application switching command to be clicked or touched.

Modern or touch screen apps from windows 8 can now run in a window and do not have to be full screen.

Touch Devices, tablets and 2 in 1 devices will automatically identify what mode they are in, keyboard or touch and change automatically. This can be set to ask you before changing. However it makes the rapid transition from a touch device to a keyboard interface very simple.

A new notification centre on the right hand side (similar to android phone and tablets and windows phone notifications centres) displays on the right hand side and also allows quick access to settings.

Wi-Fi Sense in Windows 10 is a Potential Security Risk

Most people use a wireless network or Wi-Fi access via their home or office modems for mobile devices including phones, tablets, laptops and even desktop PCs. There is a new setting in Windows 10 called Wi-Fi Sense. By default this is turned on but can be easily switched off. However turning it on can create a potential security risk as it allows you to share your Wi-Fi network settings to your friends so they can access your network. Doing this allows them to also share that with their friends. There is a solution and that is to change the name of your Wireless Access Point or SSID. These links explain the Wi-Fi Sense settings:

http://www.howtogeek.com/219700/what-is-wi-fi-sense-and-why-does-it-want-your-facebook-account/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/

And this page tells you how to change your SSID. It will need to be named with an “_optout” at the end.

we can re-configure your router remotely quickly and easily

Follow us on Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces then connect with me:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/spyjournal technology, cycling, social media, management, business, and web
• Linked In http://www.linkedin.com/in/jethromanagement
• Delicious https://delicious.com/jethrocon saved links
• Blog http://spyjournal.biz/ all sorts of stuff including personal and family updates
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• Dreamcoat Photography Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DreamcoatPhotography
• Dreamsport Photography Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DreamSportPhotography
• Red Hot Snapper Facebook https://www.facebook.com/redhotsnapper roller derby

Did you know that today was Bastille Day? Will you be celebrating?

Just as this French National day commemorates the beginning of the French Revolution I hope that this newsletter can help you begin a revolution at work with some innovative ideas utilising Office 365.

Quickly create an Online Survey – using Excel and OneDrive

When you login to Office 365 you should see an icon in your apps list for OneDrive. This is your personal user accounts 1TB of storage space. Once you go there online you get access to some interesting features not available on your PC.

One of these is the ability to create an Excel survey. Click the New icon and then choose Excel Survey. You will get a prompt to create the Survey workbook with a title and then the opportunity to create questions with options for free text, Yes No, your choice selections and so on. The resulting survey that is created can then be shared with anyone you want to. For example please take this short survey.

There are lots of really awesome use cases for this. Use this as a pre appointment data collection option with a tablet with customers who walk into your business, use at trade shows or send it to customers with a QR code after they purchase from you for post sales feedback and follow-up. Results can be seen real time in the office in a spreadsheet that you can customise as necessary.

Contact us now if you would like to learn more about creating Online Excel Surveys.

Using Sway to generate Online Documents and websites – no programming!

Nearly every business uses PowerPoint and Word. Turning your documents into online applications is far easier than you might think. Using Sway (on your Office 365 app list or by going to www.sway.com) you can turn your existing PowerPoint and word documents into websites that you can send your customers to. For example here is the digital strategy presentation we give to our customers. This took 5 minutes to upload and tweak using the visual tools in Sway.

Talk to us about using Sway to enhance your online presence, integrate with social media and incorporate into client presentations. Upgrade your Corporate Look!

Using Delve to improve your Corporate Communications

Businesses today create large amounts of data. From sales reports, customer presentations, tenders and quotes, SOP, Office Procedures and other how to documents to excel spreadsheets and power points there is endless amounts of data being created. SharePoint is the ideal place to store all this data as it is so easily accessible by all users from any location and on any device.

But how do you know what is being created? Are you repeating work that someone else has done, or do you need to copy and paste boilerplate text? What about utilising someone else’s spreadsheet to get you started with that new analysis report your boss just asked for? Office Delve is the new tool being rolled out in Office 365 to assist with surfacing information that is tailored to you.

From the Office Website:

Delve helps you discover the information that's likely to be most interesting to you right now - across Office 365. You don't have to remember the title of a document or where it's stored. Delve shows you documents no matter where they're stored in OneDrive for Business or in Sites in Office 365.

Delve also lets you view your colleagues' profiles, or edit your own. Your profile is like an electronic business card you share inside your organization.

Delve never changes any permissions, so you'll only see documents that you already have access to. Other people will not see your private documents. Learn more about privacy.

When you and your colleagues view, edit, and share each other's documents, Delve learns from how you work and tailors the information to each of you on your personalized Home page. What you see in Delve is different from what your colleagues see.

But how do you know what is being created? Are you repeating work that someone else has done, or do you need to copy and paste boilerplate text? What about utilising someone else’s spreadsheet to get you started with that new analysis report your boss just asked for? Office Delve is the new tool being rolled out in Office 365 to assist with surfacing information that is tailored to you.

From the Office Website:

Delve helps you discover the information that's likely to be most interesting to you right now - across Office 365. You don't have to remember the title of a document or where it's stored. Delve shows you documents no matter where they're stored in OneDrive for Business or in Sites in Office 365.

Delve also lets you view your colleagues' profiles, or edit your own. Your profile is like an electronic business card you share inside your organization.

Delve never changes any permissions, so you'll only see documents that you already have access to. Other people will not see your private documents. Learn more about privacy.

When you and your colleagues view, edit, and share each other's documents, Delve learns from how you work and tailors the information to each of you on your personalized Home page. What you see in Delve is different from what your colleagues see.

Talks to us about getting Delve working in your organisation

Follow us on Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces then connect with me:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/spyjournal technology, cycling, social media, management, business, and web
• Linked In http://www.linkedin.com/in/jethromanagement
• Delicious https://delicious.com/jethrocon saved links
• Blog http://spyjournal.biz/ all sorts of stuff including personal and family updates
• Spyjournal Facebook https://www.facebook.com/spyjournal.biz tech, cycling, and other stuff
• Subscribe to our daily Newspaper https://paper.li/spyjournal/1345852972
• Subscribe to our weekly Newspaper https://paper.li/spyjournal/1345853288
• Jethro Management Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JethroManagement business, management, web
• Jethro Marketing Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JethroMarketing social media, marketing
• Dreamcoat Photography Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DreamcoatPhotography
• Dreamsport Photography Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DreamSportPhotography
• Red Hot Snapper Facebook https://www.facebook.com/redhotsnapper roller derby

Did you get to the end of the Financial Year in good shape?

I certainly hope 2014-2015 was a good year for you and that you are looking forward to lots of new prospects, sales and good business in the next. I have outlined below some end of year things that you should take note of.

Financial Year End Tasks - Backups

There are lots of things to do at Financial Year End. Preparing Trust and Company minutes, getting stocktakes done and preparing final things for your accountant are some of the important ones. However in this newsletter I want to highlight some often neglected ones.

First of all remember a copy of your data is not necessarily a backup. If you copy it, label it and store it securely it can be. The important test is that it is not being overwritten. So using your daily backup without taking monthly or at the very least annual snapshots of your data is a poor process. At the very least you should be able to locate and recover from the last 1-5 financial years data. If you do not have a “proper” backup process in place then ask us how to do so. These components should be a checklist for you. A Proper Backup should:

• Allow you to recover from the last day, week, month, year – meaning you have access to media with those data sets on them.
• Be labelled – clear and time proof labelling (not post it notes)
• Be recorded – note who did the backup, when and what was backed up as well as the media it was stored on if your system does not do that for you automatically.
• Be tested – at least once every 3-6 months you should run a recovery test to ensure that you can recover your data in the case of a failure.

Contact us now if you can’t tick off all those items for your backups.

Financial Year End Tasks – Using Excel Spreadsheets

Nearly every business uses Excel Spreadsheets. And none more so than office staff, accountants and book keepers. While Excel is a fantastic Business Intelligence tool a quick google search on parliamentary inquiries excel errors will scare the pants off you. I have seen first-hand how QLD government has reported incorrect numbers based on spreadsheets with errors in them. Most businesses also have the same problem – even mine! Relying on spreadsheet data for financial information needs to be done with the right auditing tools in place to ensure fidelity of the data, and comparison with the source (accounting) data. Done right Excel Reporting tools can greatly improve a business’s ability to manage their financial information, management reporting and other data. I have 27 years of experience of working with financial data in Excel (since version 1 and Lotus Notes before that). If you would like some assistance to ensure that your spreadsheet design (or your accounting staff’s spreadsheets) are accurate there are some simple things we can do to assist you. Even if that is just a couple of hours of specific training in good spreadsheet design techniques.

Talk to us about Excel and VBA training for your business. We provide customised training that your end users will find useful straight away – not just going through a manual on formulas and functions they will never need or use.

Financial Year End Tasks – Filing and Archives

I grew up in businesses with large filing archives, microfiche machines, rooms full of filing cabinets, stacked shelving and the dusty ceiling space storage accessed with a torch in times of desperate need only!

Today we create data in multiples so much greater than those days of typing pools, slow copy machines and dusty archives. However often digital data is stored in the same method that we used to store analogue data. This is really rather ridiculous when we think about it. Before computers data could only be stored in one place in a filing system and the indexing method needed to be able to help you easily find that data. Today with the use of metadata we can store data anywhere and use powerful search algorithms to find and locate data. The key is the metadata. Without it we can be as lost as the person in the archives who discovers all the vertical tab filing labels have fallen off.

The modern office stores data in most if not all the following places. Email, hard drives, network servers and storage, cloud storage places, USB external drives and mobile devices. How many times have you or someone you know spent ages looking for the file, email or image you “saved” and now can’t remember where it is?

Talks to us about how we can help you make the best use of your digital filing systems and reduce wasted time

Quick Steps in Outlook

Email management is probably the largest time waster for businesses and office workers today. From Outlook 2010 on there is an awesome feature in Outlook that enables anybody to quickly and easily automate repetitive email management tasks. Effectively they are shortcuts that you can create that will mark items as read, move them to folders, forward emails to preselected team members and many other customisable actions.

Click on an email and in the ribbon select the quick steps box. You can open the manager and look at the default ones, modify or duplicate them and play with the options. More help online to manage Quick Steps.

If you are processing more than 100 emails a day ask us for help with managing them in significantly more efficient ways than what you probably are doing now. this applies to those people with hundreds of unread mails also!

Follow us on Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces then connect with me:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/spyjournal technology, cycling, social media, management, business, and web
• Linked In http://www.linkedin.com/in/jethromanagement
• Delicious https://delicious.com/jethrocon saved links
• Blog http://spyjournal.biz/ all sorts of stuff including personal and family updates
• Spyjournal Facebook https://www.facebook.com/spyjournal.biz tech, cycling, and other stuff
• Subscribe to our daily Newspaper https://paper.li/spyjournal/1345852972
• Subscribe to our weekly Newspaper https://paper.li/spyjournal/1345853288
• Jethro Management Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JethroManagement business, management, web
• Jethro Marketing Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JethroMarketing social media, marketing
• Dreamcoat Photography Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DreamcoatPhotography
• Dreamsport Photography Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DreamSportPhotography
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What’s the biggest challenge facing you in business right now?

If you don’t read the rest of this article maybe just take 30 seconds to email me and send me an answer to that question. It’s possible I can locate something or know something that can help you. Or maybe one of my other clients can; the power of networking is invaluable!

Seminar Update

If you missed the seminar we will be holding a repeat one. However we are aware Wednesday mornings are not good for a lot of people. We are also prepared to come and do a customised version directly with customers and their staff for a flat fee.

Contact us now if you want to do this for Your Business

Windows 10 Specifications

More and more information is coming out around Windows 10 and the specifications have now been released for the upgrade. There potentially will be deprecations of applications and features. The official Windows 10 Specifications page lists the minimum requirements for hardware and also lists all the potential issues.

WARNING! At this stage if you are running a small business network with a server we don’t recommend upgrading to Windows 10 yet. If you are running individual PCS then there should be no problem, but I would recommend either doing it on a non-critical machine first or asking us to assist. Finally you should have a Microsoft ID before upgrading. Windows 8 users will likely already have one but Windows 7 users might not.

Talk to us first if you are not sure about updating to Windows 10.

Office Shortcut Keys

Learning to use Office applications effectively is critical for information workers. So many hints and tips are out there it is sometimes hard to know where to start. Even the little ones we provide in these newsletters or online are just a drop in the bucket.

Today we are going to show you a bunch of really effective short cut keys that we use regularly and that once mastered will speed up your use of Excel. Print these out maybe and put them near your screen. I have highlighted the best ones that are my constant use Go Tos.

Keys for moving and scrolling in a worksheet or workbook

Arrow keys: Move one cell up, down, left, or right

CTRL+arrow: key Move to the edge of the current data region
HOME: Move to the beginning of the row
CTRL+HOME: Move to the beginning of the worksheet
CTRL+END: Move to the last cell on the worksheet, which is the cell at the intersection of the rightmost used column and the bottom-most used row (in the lower-right corner), or the cell opposite the home cell, which is typically A1
PAGE DOWN: Move down one screen
PAGE UP: Move up one screen
ALT+PAGE DOWN: Move one screen to the right
ALT+PAGE UP: Move one screen to the left
CTRL+PAGE DOWN: Move to the next sheet in the workbook
CTRL+PAGE UP: Move to the previous sheet in the workbook
CTRL+F6 or CTRL+TAB: Move to the next workbook or window
CTRL+SHIFT+F6 or CTRL+SHIFT+TAB: Move to the previous workbook or window
F6: Move to the next pane in a workbook that has been split
SHIFT+F6: Move to the previous pane in a workbook that has been split
CTRL+BACKSPACE: Scroll to display the active cell
F5: Display the Go To dialog box
SHIFT+F5: Display the Find dialog box
SHIFT+F4: Repeat the last Find action (same as Find Next)
TAB: Move between unlocked cells on a protected worksheet

Keys for moving in a worksheet with End mode on

END: Turn End mode on or off
END, arrow key: Move by one block of data within a row or column
END, HOME: Move to the last cell on the worksheet, which is the cell at the intersection of the rightmost used column and the bottom-most used row (in the lower-right corner), or the cell opposite the home cell, which is typically A1
END, ENTER: Move to the last cell to the right in the current row that is not blank; unavailable if you have selected the Transition navigation keys check box on the Transition tab (Tools menu, Options command)

Keys for entering data on a worksheet

ENTER: Complete a cell entry and move down in the selection
ALT+ENTER: Start a new line in the same cell
CTRL+ENTER: Fill the selected cell range with the current entry
SHIFT+ENTER: Complete a cell entry and move up in the selection
CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER: Enter an array formula (must be used when editing an existing array formula)
TAB: Complete a cell entry and move to the right in the selection
SHIFT+TAB: Complete a cell entry and move to the left in the selection
ESC: Cancel a cell entry
BACKSPACE: Delete the character to the left of the insertion point, or delete the selection
DELETE: Delete the character to the right of the insertion point, or delete the selection
CTRL+DELETE: Delete text to the end of the line
Arrow keys: Move one character up, down, left, or right
HOME: Move to the beginning of the line
F4 or CTRL+Y: Repeat the last action
SHIFT+F2: Edit a cell comment
CTRL+SHIFT+F3: Create names from row and column labels
CTRL+D: Fill down
CTRL+R: Fill to the right
CTRL+F3: Define a name

Keys for working in cells or the formula bar

BACKSPACE: Edit the active cell and then clear it, or delete the preceding character in the active cell as you edit cell contents
ENTER: Complete a cell entry
CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER: Enter a formula as an array formula
ESC: Cancel an entry in the cell or formula bar
CTRL+A: Display the Formula Palette after you type a function name in a formula
CTRL+SHIFT+A: Insert the argument names and parentheses for a function after you type a function name in a formula
CTRL+K: Insert a hyperlink
ENTER (in a cell with a hyperlink): Activate a hyperlink
F2: Edit the active cell and position the insertion point at the end of the line
F3: Paste a defined name into a formula
SHIFT+F3: Paste a function into a formula
F9: Calculate all sheets in all open workbooks
CTRL+ALT+F9: Calculate all sheets in the active workbook
SHIFT+F9: Calculate the active worksheet
= (equal sign): Start a formula
ALT+= (equal sign): Insert the AutoSum formula
CTRL+; (semicolon): Enter the date
CTRL+SHIFT+: (colon): Enter the time
CTRL+SHIFT+" (quotation mark): Copy the value from the cell above the active cell into the cell or the formula bar
CTRL+` (single left quotation mark): Alternate between displaying cell values and displaying cell formulas
CTRL+' (apostrophe): Copy a formula from the cell above the active cell into the cell or the formula bar
ALT+DOWN ARROW: Display the AutoComplete list

Keys for editing data

F2: Edit the active cell and put the insertion point at the end of the line
ESC: Cancel an entry in the cell or formula bar
BACKSPACE: Edit the active cell and then clear it, or delete the preceding character in the active cell as you edit the cell contents
F3: Paste a defined name into a formula
ENTER: Complete a cell entry
CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER: Enter a formula as an array formula
CTRL+A: Display the Formula Palette after you type a function name in a formula
CTRL+SHIFT+A: Insert the argument names and parentheses for a function, after you type a function name in a formula
F7: Display the Spelling dialog box

Keys for inserting, deleting, and copying a selection

CTRL+C: Copy the selection
CTRL+X: Cut the selection
CTRL+V: Paste the selection
DELETE: Clear the contents of the selection
CTRL+HYPHEN: Delete the selection
CTRL+Z: Undo the last action
CTRL+SHIFT+PLUS SIGN: Insert blank cells

Keys for selecting cells, columns, or rows

CTRL+SHIFT+* (asterisk): Select the current region around the active cell (the current region is a data area enclosed by blank rows and blank columns)
SHIFT+arrow key: Extend the selection by one cell
CTRL+SHIFT+arrow key: Extend the selection to the last nonblank cell in the same column or row as the active cell
SHIFT+HOME: Extend the selection to the beginning of the row
CTRL+SHIFT+HOME: Extend the selection to the beginning of the worksheet
CTRL+SHIFT+END: Extend the selection to the last used cell on the worksheet (lower-right corner)
CTRL+SPACEBAR: Select the entire column
SHIFT+SPACEBAR: Select the entire row
CTRL+A: Select the entire worksheet
SHIFT+BACKSPACE: Select only the active cell when multiple cells are selected
SHIFT+PAGE DOWN: Extend the selection down one screen
SHIFT+PAGE UP: Extend the selection up one screen
CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR: With an object selected, select all objects on a sheet
CTRL+6: Alternate between hiding objects, displaying objects, and displaying placeholders for objects
CTRL+7: Show or hide the Standard toolbar
F8: Turn on extending a selection by using the arrow keys
SHIFT+F8: Add another range of cells to the selection; or use the arrow keys to move to the start of the range you want to add, and then press F8 and the arrow keys to select the next range

Let us know if you like these tips or want to know how to use any of the Microsoft Office products more effectively. Training your staff in how to use their computers more efficiently and effectively is a small investment that can make them more productive.

Call us today!

Social Media Images Sizes

There are so many different social media platforms and they all have different recommended image sizes for use in the header, profile pic and content. It can be very difficult working out what size to use where. Getting it wrong can mean that images don’t display correctly, scale badly, crop text or logos from the image or worse. We actually use a spreadsheet tool we have developed to identify the correct sizes for to convert images to for each platform as well as many other regular formats such as A4 portrait and landscape, DL flyers, business cards and more. If you struggle with this talk to us and we can help. In the meantime this website gives you a great cheat sheet for social media image sizes on some of the more popular platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest) and the sizes to use for headers, profile pics and inline content.

Ask us for help with developing great images with text overlays for your social media advertising and web content

Follow us on Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces then connect with me:

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