As the first day of school approaches, I encourage my kids to start going to bed earlier. You know, instead of 4 am, go to bed by 12 am and keep moving that up. The 16-year-old didn’t do that, of course. As he loves school, the 12-year-old did his best to get to bed earlier. He also opened the packages of his brand new, unbroken, [...]
As we’ve mentioned in past round ups of tools and apps, there are so many out there. It’s dizzying. We can’t begin to uncover all the gems. This time, we asked journalists and industry experts to share their favorite lesser known apps. And, boy did they deliver! We’re using some of the apps they recommended. As if we needed more! This roundup includes apps for a variety [...]
One day, out of the blue, my slick red coffeemaker pumped out only half of our morning wakeup fuel. I jiggled the coffeepot. Nothing. Hmm. I decided to try again the next day before entering panic mode. The next day, I turned on the coffeemaker and 15 minutes later, the coffeepot remained empty. Jostled it. Zippo. I took out the coffee filter with the grounds [...]
One point four million. That’s how many apps are in the Google Play store as of February 2015. That’s more than Apple App Store’s 1.2 million. It’s not surprising when you think about it. Apple is the only company that produces hardware for its iOS. Many companies manufacture Android smartphones, tablets, and other devices. With 1.4 million options, every category must have thousands or hundreds [...]
We aren’t on Twitter all day. If we were, we’d never get anything done. It’s easy to get pulled into many conversations and spend hours there. Aside from Twitter chats and the occasional reply, we schedule our tweets throughout the day rather than responding live. This spreads out our presence and helps us avoid dominating the Twitter stream. We create every reply, retweet, and [...]
Google has introduced its next operating system: Android M. We don’t know what M stands for yet other than M Developer Preview. Considering its past names have all been sweet (Gingerbread, Lollipop, Jelly Bean, Ice Cream Sandwich, etc.), we wonder if its final name will be marshmallow, meringue, macaroon, or macaron. We’re getting hungry and off track here. What could be Android M's final name? Back [...]
Our Twitter account needs a good cleaning. The people we follow outnumber the people who follow us. And that’s OK. Still, we want to weed the list to remove anyone who isn’t active. A colleague tells us about ManageFlitter, so we give it a go. ManageFlitter offers three plans including a free one. The free plan allows you to clean up your with a limit [...]
A friend asked for feedback on a website. Rather than typing up all the notes, I took screenshots with annotations. It saved a lot of time not having to write: “The tab in the upper left corner might be better off on the right corner.” With a screenshot, I circled the tab and drew an arrow of where it might go. A picture is worth [...]
Motorola has released its second generation Moto G phone, also known as Motorola Moto G 2014 and Motorola Moto G2. Officially, it goes by Moto G and it’s not the same phone as the Moto G (2013) or Moto X. The new Moto G is powered by a quad-core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor accompanied by 1 GB of RAM and the Adreno 305 GPU [...]
To find out accounting firms’ top technology initiatives, American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CICA) have surveyed more than 3,000 accounting professionals. According to the survey, U.S. accountants’ top technology priorities are securing the IT environment, managing and retaining data, and ensuring privacy. It’s no surprise that accountants have put security at the top of their list because of the [...]
LG has announced the specs of the LG G4, its newest phone. The first thing you notice is the finish. There are four choices: black football, brown football, grey diamonds and white diamonds. Football? Diamonds? What are we talking about? LG G4 Specs Take a look at the cases. Don’t the brown and black leather shells with their seam in the middle look like flat footballs? [...]
Whether you’re a financial consultant, IT consultant, marketing and sales consultant, you most likely do a variety of tasks. This can range from project management and creating drawings to managing your website and billing. With every software category potentially having hundreds of options, the search for software to help you be more efficient becomes daunting. Then there’s the price, which adds up depending on the [...]
True story. A colleague was talking to an IT consultant. The discussion brought up a problem one of the IT consultant’s clients faced. Their team struggled to find an efficient way to sync iPhone 6 with Outlook. Most of them would enter a new appointment into Microsoft Outlook on their computers. And do the same thing on their phones. Then when they went out of [...]
9 Tools to Protect Your Online Privacy Pew Research Center Americans’ Views on Government Surveillance Programs survey asks whether such monitoring programs have changed their online behavior. Most Americans know about these programs. More than a third of those familiar with government surveillance have taken steps to protect their privacy, and one-fourth of those, create stronger passwords. Although more than half say it’s unacceptable for the [...]
We often hear stories from real estate agents or IT consultants about how they discover software they don’t know what they’d do without. To help realtors be more productive, we share some of the tech tools and software that can save them minutes to hours of work. With these tools, real estate agents will be able to spend more time with clients in their quest [...]
That antivirus and antimalware app you use? Is it the best one for your business? Every software has features where one may be missing features you need while another has them. You may have a tech challenge for which there’s a solution that can save you time and not even realize it. IT keeps your motor running. Photo credit: Ford Thunderbird (license). Every small business — [...]
Standard financial planning software, Excel spreadsheets, customer relationship management (CRM) and smartphone apps are some of the tools financial advisors depend on. But you may be surprised to know there are other software and hardware products you may not have considered. These could mean the difference of saving a few minutes to a few hours. These 10 productivity-boosting tech tools will help you maximize client [...]
Have you ever tried to browse for productivity apps in the App Store? Overwhelming, isn’t it? That’s not unexpected considering there are more than 1.5 million apps for the iPhone. Get this … the productivity category alone has more than 40k apps! In case you were curious, the App Store has more than 20 categories. Games and education comprise about a third of all the [...]
Our company is located in the Boston area, so we’re in the same boat as everyone affected by the blizzard. Many companies have shut down their doors forcing employees to stay home where they can avoid the dangers of commuting and extreme cold temperatures. Those who have children are most likely finding it hard to get things done as they want to go outside [...]
This is a popular time of the year to get a new phone, whether as a gift or surprising a loved one with a shiny new phone. One of the common problems we hear about is the struggle to transfer contacts and calendar from the old phone to the new phone. Some people start from scratch. But why do that when there are fast and [...]
Got a new phone for a gift, plan to surprise someone with one or treat yourself to an upgrade? You can take steps to set up the new phone and transfer everything to make the transition a smooth one. If you give someone a phone as a gift, you can go the extra mile by providing this information or pointing the way. Sometimes we [...]
Hacking reports aren’t new. However, events like the hacking of celebrity accounts on iCloud, NSA surveillance and Facebook’s (Finally!) changing the default for new posts from “public” to “friends” have people re-thinking the storing of private and confidential information in the cloud. Believe it or not, the younger generation is concerned about privacy and looking to moving off the cloud. Although Millennials have grown up [...]
The recent hacking of private iCloud accounts may have you asking: Is Akruto safe to sync Outlook? We developed Akruto with safety and privacy in mind. With Akruto, you have complete control over your own data. No company — including Akruto — can access your personal information when you sync Outlook devices using Akruto. The first thing we did was make sure your information doesn’t [...]
The trend of decreasing cloud use and increasing privacy and security are expected to grow as cloud hacking continues making the news. First, we heard about the celebrity photo thefts, which were stolen from private iCloud accounts (and some were deleted!). Then, we saw proof that Gmail can be hacked with 92 percent success rate. And now we come across this story by Mashable [...]
To bolster the protection of its citizen’s private information, the new EU General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect next year. Yet ComputerWeekly reports that only 1 in 100 cloud providers meet the requirements in the new directive. University of California researchers say that Gmail can be hacked with a 92 percent success rate — regardless of phone model or software platform. No doubt, you’ve heard [...]
