I just finished up a very upsetting phone call with a business owner. She brought us her home computer after her current computer support company said they couldn’t help her this week. She assured me all of her files were backed up when she gave me the computer and said it was set up by the same people that do her business’ computers. (She brought it to us because they told her that they are a small company and would be on vacation; they were not available until after the holidays.)
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With a whole new generation of Bluetooth headsets out, it may be time to upgrade. I have two favorites in the over $100 professional talker category, the Jawbone Prime, and the Plantronics Voyager Pro.
When looking for style, noise reduction, and good sound quality even on the walk from the car to the office the Jawbone Prime is my tool of choice. It is easy to slip on, initiate a call and start talking. The biggest issue with it is battery life, they box reports 3.5 hours, and I get about 2.5 hours of talk time using it. The Jawbone Prime shares the same standard USB charger as the iPhone, so if you have a car charger for your iPhone you are in luck, and it can be “Quick Charged” in about 25 minutes. A “Quick Charge” lasts for about an hour of talk time.
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Is it time to jump from still images to video? You can start recording the holiday emotion and more important the holiday follies. (You may be thinking to yourself, I have been doing video for years! Read on.) Recently I added a Flip Video to my toolkit. Not only is it great for recording stories about saving servers, it is great for putting together those holiday moments.
I prefer a Flip over a tape based device because it is so easy to use and allows me to quickly record even just a few seconds of video. I carry mine around with me in my coat pocket, so it is always ready to go. Instead of having a camera stuck to my eye, I shoot little 20 to 30 second clips. I then take these clips and edit them together using some simple video editing software. The Flip comes with some to get you started. I prefer iMovie on a Macintosh. (Yeah, I use a Mac to do my personal stuff.) Here’s a link to a video I put together over Thanksgiving.
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We will be posting a number of reviews over the next week discussing our favorite products and why we love them:
A number of folks asked me at my recent workshop on the Biggest Business Pitfalls of Technology: “How should we back up our data?” This is a tough question a pretty long answer. Let me give you some DOs and DON’Ts to help you decide:
DO backup your data everyday and test that backup!
DO encrypt your data on every backup!
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Oh no, did you delete something in Outlook that you shouldn’t have? If you’re like me, you are probably kicking yourself for tossing that oh-so-important email or attachment down the drain. Unless, of course, your organization has an Exchange server with Deleted Items Retention enabled.
You probably have access to this valuable feature without even knowing it. Deleted Items Retention is enabled by default on most Exchange servers since Exchange 2000, and system administrators are able to choose how many days of deleted items to keep (default is 14).
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