One of the greatest things about the Internet is the incredible amount of information at our fingertips. Want to know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? You can easily find out by going to Google and searching for it. The trouble comes when we conduct a search and are presented with an overwhelming amount of results to sort through. However, there are more effective ways to conduct searches.

Here are seven tips to help you Google like an expert.

• Exact phrase. If you’re looking for a specific topic, Mobile Internet for example, it’s easier to put the search into quotations i.e., “Mobile Internet”. This will tell Google to return results that match the words.
• Exclude words. When you conduct searches for general information, you’ll often get unwanted results. Let’s say you are looking for marketing information and don’t want results that have the term “sales” in them. Type in Marketing -Sales, and Google will return marketing results without sales. Note: don’t have a space between – and the term you want to exclude.
• Search similar. If you’re looking for a topic and would also like to search for similar words, put a ~ in your search. e.g., “~Business”. Google will return business results as well as results for synonyms.
• Search between dates. To find results for something over a period of time put the dates separated by “..” (two periods) e.g., “1999 ..2012”
• Wildcard search. A wildcard is used to substitute a word in your search. Google has designated * as the wild card. When you enter a wildcard, Google will essentially fill in the blank.
• Define:. For words you don’t know the meaning of, you can have the definition comeback as the number one result by entering “define: word”.
• Think like a website. It’s best to not ask questions when you’re searching for something. Rather, look for the results. If have back pain and enter, “My back hurts. What’s a good pain reliever?” You’ll find the result, but it may take a few pages of searching. You should instead enter: “Back pain reliever”.

With these search methods you’ll be able to find the information you want quicker. For more tips on how to use Google Search, and other Google apps, to their maximum potential please contact us.

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If someone asks you a question that you don’t know the answer to, the common reply is, “I don’t know, Google it.” Google’s search has become our go-to source for nearly everything. Want to know what the weather’s like outside? Don’t bother looking out the window, Google it. Despite how much we use it, at times we can be inefficient with our searches.

Here are seven tips to help you Google like an expert.

• Exact phrase. If you’re looking for a specific topic, Mobile Internet for example, it’s easier to put the search into quotations i.e., “Mobile Internet”. This will tell Google to return results that match the words.
• Exclude words. When you conduct searches for general information, you’ll often get unwanted results. Let’s say you are looking for marketing information and don’t want results that have the term “sales” in them. Type in Marketing -Sales, and Google will return marketing results without sales. Note: don’t have a space between – and the term you want to exclude.
• Search similar. If you’re looking for a topic and would also like to search for similar words, put a ~ in your search. e.g., “~Business”. Google will return business results as well as results for synonyms.
• Search between dates. To find results for something over a period of time put the dates separated by “..” (two periods) e.g., “1999 ..2012”
• Wildcard search. A wildcard is used to substitute a word in your search. Google has designated * as the wild card. When you enter a wildcard, Google will essentially fill in the blank.
• Define:. For words you don’t know the meaning of, you can have the definition comeback as the number one result by entering “define: word”.
• Think like a website. It’s best to not ask questions when you’re searching for something. Rather, look for the results. If have back pain and enter, “My back hurts. What’s a good pain reliever?” You’ll find the result, but it may take a few pages of searching. You should instead enter: “Back pain reliever”.

With these search methods you’ll be able to find the information you want quicker. For more tips on how to use Google Search, and other Google apps, to their maximum potential please contact us.

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For many Gen-Y who have grown up with the Internet, searching for something online is second nature. That doesn’t mean, however, that they are all search wizards. In fact they are probably just as effective at finding information as any other employee. What they do know, is how to use Google search to more easily find desired results.

Here are seven tips to help you Google like an expert.

• Exact phrase. If you’re looking for a specific topic, Mobile Internet for example, it’s easier to put the search into quotations i.e., “Mobile Internet”. This will tell Google to return results that match the words.
• Exclude words. When you conduct searches for general information, you’ll often get unwanted results. Let’s say you are looking for marketing information and don’t want results that have the term “sales” in them. Type in Marketing -Sales, and Google will return marketing results without sales. Note: don’t have a space between – and the term you want to exclude.
• Search similar. If you’re looking for a topic and would also like to search for similar words, put a ~ in your search. e.g., “~Business”. Google will return business results as well as results for synonyms.
• Search between dates. To find results for something over a period of time put the dates separated by “..” (two periods) e.g., “1999 ..2012”
• Wildcard search. A wildcard is used to substitute a word in your search. Google has designated * as the wild card. When you enter a wildcard, Google will essentially fill in the blank.
• Define:. For words you don’t know the meaning of, you can have the definition comeback as the number one result by entering “define: word”.
• Think like a website. It’s best to not ask questions when you’re searching for something. Rather, look for the results. If have back pain and enter, “My back hurts. What’s a good pain reliever?” You’ll find the result, but it may take a few pages of searching. You should instead enter: “Back pain reliever”.

With these search methods you’ll be able to find the information you want quicker. For more tips on how to use Google Search, and other Google apps, to their maximum potential please contact us.

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Undertaking an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a big step for any company. Even a limited ERP project can create concern about job security and the “real” intentions of implementing the system. Office “myths” and rumors can cause unneeded anxiety within your team. Head off those concerns by addressing them early and often.

Myth #1: ERP will cause people to lose their jobs
Employees often worry that the business process changes of an ERP system will eliminate the need for their expertise and automate all processes. To the contrary, ERP can add jobs by making the company more competitive and successful. Employees can expand their contribution to the bottom line when administrative tasks are automated.

Debunk Myth#1 with clear expectations and butturance that employees will be able to spend more time producing value, and less time on repetitive tasks.

Myth #2: Users will be expected to figure it out rather than receive training
Learning a new ERP system, no matter how intuitive, takes time and practice to help users make the most of the solution. Companies that don’t invest in training often end up wondering why people work around the system. The entire organization from top to bottom should receive formal training followed by practice sessions using company test data. Allowing users to focus time and attention on learning the system will help with user adoption and acceptance.

Avoid Myth #2 by scheduling formal training for employees – away from their regular job – that includes hands-on training.

Myth #3: Once the implementation is done, it’s done
An ERP project is not over simply because the application has been deployed. ERP is an evolution that supports the change and growth of an organization. As users become more familiar with the system, they will find new ways to expand the functionality to solve problems, and improve business processes.
Phased implementations can focus on high priority operations and roll out over time to minimize disruptions. Revisiting the uses of ERP on a regular basis will ensure that the organization is making the most of their investment.

The whole point is to make the company more adaptive to change by improving productivity and delivering more insightful information to decision makers. Based on those goals, progress should be continual.

Debunk Myth #3 by incorporating ERP as a strategic component of all business planning activities.
Ready to make the move to ERP? Let’s talk about the cost effective options that can take your company to the next level.

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If you were to turn your daily schedule into a pie chart, there’s a pretty high chance that meetings take up a large portion of the pie. Love them, or hate them, meetings are an essential part of business that are going nowhere. A major shift from face-to-face to computer-computer meetings is taking place, with many companies now using Microsoft Office 365 to conduct meetings.

If you use Office 365 in your company, you can have online meetings through Microsoft’s messaging tool, Lync. Here’s how to start a meeting, and some features that make face-to-face meetings unnecessary.

How to start a meeting
In Outlook’s calendar, schedule a meeting and invite the participants. When it’s time for the meeting, simply log into Lync, go to your calendar and select the meeting. You’ll have the option to Join online meeting, click it and the meeting will start. If a colleague is online and you would like them to join the meeting, click on their name and drag them over to the meeting window.

Features you can use during the meeting
There are a number of useful things you can do in the meeting including:

• Video calls. If you and the attendees have webcams, you can turn the meeting into a video call by pressing the webcam button beside the attendees’ names.
• Share and share alike. Press Share (beside video) in the meeting window to get a dropdown menu with a number of things you can share with the participants. Say you are going to do a demonstration on your screen, you can share it with the attendees by selecting Main Monitor. You can also share presentations or programs.
• Change the presenter. If an employee would like to show something from their screen, or is going to present something, you can give them presenter status by right clicking on their name and selecting Make a Presenter.
• No interruptions. If one person is presenting, and another has a question, they don’t have to stop the presentation to ask a question, they can simply select IM and type the question. All participants will see it, and the presenter can answer the question when they are finished.

If you’re looking for an alternative to physical meetings, Office 365 has a great set of products that will allow you to do just that. To learn more about Office 365 or any of Microsoft’s other products please contact us, we’re ready to buttist you.

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As we become more technologically advanced, the need for physical interaction is diminishing. More often than not, today’s young managers prefer to meet using technology. Microsoft has caught onto this and has integrated some innovative online meeting tools into their small business software, Office 365.

If you use Office 365 in your company, you can have online meetings through Microsoft’s messaging tool, Lync. Here’s how to start a meeting, and some features that make face-to-face meetings unnecessary.

How to start a meeting
In Outlook’s calendar, schedule a meeting and invite the participants. When it’s time for the meeting, simply log into Lync, go to your calendar and select the meeting. You’ll have the option to Join online meeting, click it and the meeting will start. If a colleague is online and you would like them to join the meeting, click on their name and drag them over to the meeting window.

Features you can use during the meeting
There are a number of useful things you can do in the meeting including:

• Video calls. If you and the attendees have webcams, you can turn the meeting into a video call by pressing the webcam button beside the attendees’ names.
• Share and share alike. Press Share (beside video) in the meeting window to get a dropdown menu with a number of things you can share with the participants. Say you are going to do a demonstration on your screen, you can share it with the attendees by selecting Main Monitor. You can also share presentations or programs.
• Change the presenter. If an employee would like to show something from their screen, or is going to present something, you can give them presenter status by right clicking on their name and selecting Make a Presenter.
• No interruptions. If one person is presenting, and another has a question, they don’t have to stop the presentation to ask a question, they can simply select IM and type the question. All participants will see it, and the presenter can answer the question when they are finished.

If you’re looking for an alternative to physical meetings, Office 365 has a great set of products that will allow you to do just that. To learn more about Office 365 or any of Microsoft’s other products please contact us, we’re ready to buttist you.

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Companies no longer operate in a local only location, with technology they can reach customers all over the planet. The same goes for their employees, they can be anywhere with an Internet connection, and still be a contributing and productive member of a team. This is made possible by software like Microsoft Office 365.

If you use Office 365 in your company, you can have online meetings through Microsoft’s messaging tool, Lync. Here’s how to start a meeting, and some features that make face-to-face meetings unnecessary.

How to start a meeting
In Outlook’s calendar, schedule a meeting and invite the participants. When it’s time for the meeting, simply log into Lync, go to your calendar and select the meeting. You’ll have the option to Join online meeting, click it and the meeting will start. If a colleague is online and you would like them to join the meeting, click on their name and drag them over to the meeting window.

Features you can use during the meeting
There are a number of useful things you can do in the meeting including:

• Video calls. If you and the attendees have webcams, you can turn the meeting into a video call by pressing the webcam button beside the attendees’ names.
• Share and share alike. Press Share (beside video) in the meeting window to get a dropdown menu with a number of things you can share with the participants. Say you are going to do a demonstration on your screen, you can share it with the attendees by selecting Main Monitor. You can also share presentations or programs.
• Change the presenter. If an employee would like to show something from their screen, or is going to present something, you can give them presenter status by right clicking on their name and selecting Make a Presenter.
• No interruptions. If one person is presenting, and another has a question, they don’t have to stop the presentation to ask a question, they can simply select IM and type the question. All participants will see it, and the presenter can answer the question when they are finished.

If you’re looking for an alternative to physical meetings, Office 365 has a great set of products that will allow you to do just that. To learn more about Office 365 or any of Microsoft’s other products please contact us, we’re ready to buttist you.

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If you’re like other managers you’ve sat through or given more presentations then you can remember. While presentations are an important part of business, many presenters fail to get their message across because of their slides. If you don’t have good slides, the probability of your presentation going well is pretty low.

Here are nine tips on how to prepare a good Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.

1. Choose a relevant layout. When you choose the layout or template for your slides, pick something that’s simple and non-distracting. If you’re presenting yearly earnings, a background of flowers probably isn’t the best choice. Under no circumstances should you put your company’s logo as a background, this can make slides incredibly distracting. Put it in the header or footer instead.
2. Colors. It’s important to pick a good colour scheme for your slides. The keyword here is, “contrast.” Pick colors that contrast and are easy on the eyes. A white background with black text is good, a red background with black text is bad. If you want to use your company’s colours and they don’t contrast well, pick one of your colors and another that’s a good contrast.
3. Images. Pictures and graphics capture our attention, text puts us to sleep. The general rule of thumb is to have more visuals than text. Don’t have images for the sake of images, instead pick ones that convey what you want to say. Many good presenters will have a slide with nothing but an attention grabbing image, and use it to talk about their main idea.
4. KISS your text. KISS stands for Keep It Stupidly Simple. Text should be kept to a minimum, at most five lines or bullet points per slide. The best presentations use only keywords or showcase the utmost important data and save explanations for the presentation.
5. Eliminate animations. It can be tempting to have text or images pop up every few seconds. Resist the temptation, as it’s incredibly hard to match your presentation speed with that of the animations. Having to speed up or wait for animation will make you look unprofessional.
6. Remain consistent. If there’s one key rule with presentations, it’s remain constant. This applies to everything in your presentation. Keep the font size, font, image type, colour scheme and layout the same throughout the presentation. If you put your logo in a header on one slide, it should be in the header on all the slides.
7. Audience. When developing a presentation you should always keep in mind who your audience is. If you’re presenting to a marketing firm, they probably don’t need to see more than one or two slides with financial information. Beyond that, be sure to prepare a version of the slides for your audience. Any explanations and extra information should be put in here as well.
8. Keep the file size down. If you’re presenting on another system or will be emailing the slides, it’s a good idea to ensure the file is as small as possible. The bigger it is, the slower it’ll load and the higher the chance it will stutter or crash.
9. Practice. Go over the slides ahead of time and be sure you know the content inside and out. Another benefit to practicing is you will often catch mistakes and knowledge gaps that you can fix before you present.

By following these tips, you should be well on your way to producing a good presentation that will captivate your audience and make you look like a star. If you have any other questions regarding PowerPoint, or any of Microsoft’s other products we are here to help, please contact us.

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Think about the worst presentation you’ve even seen. Chances are high the audience was either asleep or completely disinterested. What made it so bad? Was it the presenter or was it the slides the presenter used? More times than not, it’s poorly prepared slides that ruin a presentation. Don’t let this happen to you.

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Here’s an overview of what the main technical specifications of tablets are, and what they mean.

Screen
There are two important screen measurements: size and resolution. The majority of Android tablets feature the screen size in the name e.g., Asus 10.1”. What this means is the screen is 10.1 inches diagonally. The resolution is given as two sets of numbers e.g., 1280 x 800. This is the number of pixels that make up the screen. The general rule of thumb is: the higher the resolution, the higher the viewing quality. It’s important to actually look at the screen before you purchase the tablet.  

Processor
The processor is the tablet’s brain, and is measured in megahertz (MHz) or gigahertz (GHz). A higher number will result in the tablet being able to run more applications and a smoother operating experience.

Many companies are marketing “dual core” processors. This means there are two processors acting together. Generally, the higher the number of cores, the faster the tablet will run. If you’re going to be using applications that require a lot of computing resources e.g., presentation apps, you’ll want a device with more processing power. Most users will be fine with a processor speed higher than 1 GHz. 

Memory
Memory is often confused with storage. While they are similar, memory relates to RAM which is used to run apps and execute commands given by the user. Most new tablets will come with 1 GB (Gigabyte) of RAM, which is more than enough to operate.

Internal/expandable storage
Storage is where your apps, pictures, music, etc., are installed and stored. Many Android tablets have both built-in and expandable storage. Built-in storage is inside the tablet, and can’t be expanded. Manufacturers often include the amount of built-in storage in the tablet’s name e.g., Asus 10.1” 64GB. This means there are 64 gigabytes of space or about 16,000 songs. Keep in mind that this amount is before the operating system and essential programs are installed.

Expandable storage is in the form of memory cards that can be removed, much like your digital camera. The most common form of memory card is the SD or Secure Digital. Be careful though, as not all tablets have expandable storage and those that do have a limit on the storage capacity of the card, typically a maximum of 32GB.

Battery
Android tablets are notoriously power hungry, especially with devices that have faster processors and bigger screens. Batteries are measured in mAH and the higher the number is, the longer you’ll be able to use the device.

While at first glance the technical specifications of a tablet can be a little overwhelming, they are actually fairly easy to understand. The important thing is to not be sucked in by sheer numbers alone. Take your time, read reviews and actually try the tablets before you buy. If you have any other questions about the Android platform, please contact us.

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