Microsoft Office 365 What You Need To Know

Firstly, What is Microsoft Office 365

It is secure, anywhere access to email and calendars, Office Web Apps, instant messaging, conferencing, and file sharing. See how Office 365 makes easy to communicate, create, and share in the cloud.

Explore what Microsoft Office 365 can do for you

• Office 365 adds more power to the Office you already know and use by making it easier to communicate and collaborate with others.  
• Access your email and calendar from your computer, the web, and smart device.
• Launch and sustain a professional website for your business. 
• Connect immediately with colleagues. Set up and conduct online meetings.
• Share documents and collaborate with colleagues online.  
• Create, store, and edit Office docs online. 
• Get virtually anywhere access on nearly any device* so you can be productive on the go.  
• Microsoft helps keep your data safe and private.

 

Why choose Microsoft Office 365?

 

Easy to setup and use

• Get started in minutes. Setup new users in seconds
• No training needed. Use Office tools your team knows and loves

Work anywhere

• Get virtually anywhere-access on nearly any device*
• Work on your Office files online or offline

Worry-Free IT

• Stay safe with our built-in anti-virus and spam fighting technology
• Count on 99.9% uptime
• Lower costs vs. on-site solutions

As an experienced Cloud provider, Click Networks can offer to provide you a free trial of this excellent Microsoft based service which can transform the way your business operates and budgets for its IT. Please contact us and we can get your trial up and running quickly so you can begin experiencing the brilliant Office 365 for yourself.

For more information on Office 365 please contact the IT Support experts at Click Networks in Glasgow on 0141 530 9116 or visit our website here: http://www.clicknetworks.co.uk

Google Launches New Gmail Tabs To Bad Press

A couple of months ago, Gmail launched a brand new tabbing system for inboxes, sending users and marketers into a veritable frenzy. The new tabs aim to organize your inbox into three core sections: Inbox, Social, and Promotions.

Your default inbox will mostly contain personal or business-related emails that are likely from people you know directly. Social contains blasts from social networks, like LinkedIn connection requests and Facebook mentions, as well as news from any social tools you subscribe to. Promotions is pretty

self-explanatory – this ought to contain consumer-focused newsletters, discounts, and related marketing materials.

It’s obvious why marketers would specifically be worried – will their meticulously crafted newsletters be sent into utter obscurity, now that users must click one more section to read them?
The answer is simple: there’s nothing to panic about. If you already create quality content that your audience wants to read, they will still get your blasts. If you’ve been sending meaningless drivel, however, you’ll still be ignored or marked as spam.

See? The sky isn’t falling. Here’s proof.

Users are Still in Charge
The new tabs are simply a way to keep our oft-cluttered inboxes much more organized. Some, however, are erroneously touting that Google is getting bossy.
Take the team of customer support experts HelpScout. In a recent article about the new tabs, they had this to say:

“The premise behind these changes is sound, but there’s a major concern to be addressed: Google is now organizing your inbox for you, and it can be argued that they are filtering messages without your consent.”

Without my consent? That’s a bit dramatic. The truth is, Gmail users still have full control over their inboxes. Google now attempts to organize things into folders, but we all have a very easy way to override the filtering. Nothing is etched in stone.

See an email in your Promotions tab that you feel belongs in your default inbox? Simply drag it from promotions onto the Inbox tab, and wahlah, it’s official. At that time, Gmail will ask if you’d like to move all emails from that sender into your inbox – if you click yes, it’s a done deal (until, of course, you move it elsewhere.)

Google hasn’t become the email police. They just decided to respond to the bazillions of users complaining inboxes were too crammed and messy.

Now, the real question is, are the new tabs preventing folks from reading newsletters? Let’s investigate.

How the Tabs Affect Online Marketers
We will first tackle this from a user perspective. The verdict’s still out about whether or not this will decrease readership of marketing-centric emails, but regarding those that are actually appreciated by consumers, they will still get read.

The Promotions and Social tabs illuminate nicely when new email lands in either one, and it’s incredibly simple to click over and see what’s landed. If you, as a marketer or business owner, have worked hard crafting worthwhile emails that users have voraciously consumed in the past, expect that to continue now. Organization is not a barrier to entry.

Most people already organized their email consumption; meaning that when one has free time, one dives into the promotional type emails, and responds accordingly. Nothing dramatic will change with the new tabs, except that perhaps you can’t get away with sending bad content anymore. Those days have been numbered for some time anyway.

The concerning part of all of this, however, lies in the additional way Google is using the Promotions tab. They are now sending unsolicited advertisements through this tab, thinly veiled as promotional emails. It’s easy enough to spot them – they have an “ad” label – but it still smacks of a sneaky way to shove more ads at us. Still, that’s how they make money – and since they’re only doing it in the promotions area, it’s not so heinous.

Don’t Believe the Negative Hype
Since the tabs were released, the internet has been teeming with angry marketers making extremely dramatic claims. Many quote a recent MailChimp survey that tracked early statistics on newsletters, and they did show a slight decrease in readership. But please don’t jump to conclusions like the masses, as this survey did not capture a huge majority of Gmail users that just recently enabled tabs. In other words, it was a premature survey with limited reach. Nothing to bet the farm on.
So what should you do? First, don’t panic. There’s no data supporting the negativity and fears, so hang in there. Next, follow the steps below to ensure you’re creating content your users want.

How to Weather the Gmail Tab Storm
Be proactive in your approach now that the tabs have launched; let them motivate you to create better marketing materials. Here are some top tips:

• In your next communication (and all future blasts), ask your users to move your content to their primary inbox, and link to easy instructions that tells them how (either through the drag/drop process or reverting back to the Classic view.)
• Study exactly how Gmail is filtering all communications, and take steps to prevent your other sends from landing outside the primary tab.
• Concentrate your communications on valuable information in your niche or industry, and not so heavily on your own company promotions. In other words, create content people actually want to read, and you seriously have nothing to worry about.

Why Marketers Should Embrace the Tabs
There is a big upside to these new tabs that few are discussing. These changes may even increase the readership of newsletters overall. Think that’s crazy talk?

Consider it this way – in the old model, all emails were crammed into a single view, with little rhyme or reason. That means your company newsletter had to compete with an email from mom, from various critical business partners, or from little Tommy who just learned to write. You aren’t going to win that battle for attention.

But you may very well earn the click-through when you’re sitting next to other, less interesting promotional sends. If a user clicks the Promotions tab, they know exactly what to expect – you have their attention. It is therefore up to you to not lose it in those critical moments.

See, it is possible that Gmail’s new system is a win-win. I challenge you to view this as a glass half-full scenario and see what the data tells us in the near future!

Read the full article here: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/08/12/google-launches-new-gmail-tabs-the-fallout-report/

For more information or advice on any of the topics raised in this article or with more specific IT Support questions why not contact the experts at Click Networks today with your query. Visit our website for all contact information and support here: http://www.clicknetworks.co.uk

The end of CAPTCHA?? Gibberish form verification words

It now feels perverse, but about a decade ago, when I first encountered the CAPTCHA system, I found it … satisfying. Even vindicating. I can’t recall what gibberish words I first correctly deciphered, but it was a moment I'd been awaiting since third grade. That year, my teacher summoned my parents to admonish them for my abysmal, no-good, impossible-to-read handwriting. This would be a recurring source of recrimination for me, so it was a redemptive moment when I realized that this skill I'd acquired of reading poorly formed letters, honed over decades, was not only useful, but a defining characteristic of what separated people from machines.

At first, CAPTCHA felt like a simple and agreeable game. You played it quickly, strengthening your bond with the rest of mankind, putting off the day machines will roam the Internet freely, and perhaps come to rule over us in some dystopian Matrix-like future, and went on about whatever mundane task you'd been trying to do—buy concert tickets, post a comment, whatever. It was a pleasant interruption, like a kindly stranger asking you directions before you went on your way.

But like so many things in life, that initial glow faded quickly. Instead of a quick and painless waypoint, the CAPTCHAs got harder in an effort to keep ahead of ever-smarter bots. Solving one no longer recalled the satisfying click of a fastened seat belt, but instead was akin to achieving a perfect seal on a generic imitation of a Ziploc bag. You could do it, but it'd be annoying, and it would take longer than you'd want it to, and even then not work as well as it was meant to.

As the CAPTCHAs were getting harder, I realized I wasn't seeing so well and went to get glasses for the first time. Now, each time I failed one of those tests, en route to registering for a website I didn't really want to have to register for anyway, I was left wondering whether it was the fault of my weakening eyes or the algorithm. I was afraid of being enfeebled while still a young man, left behind by technology, and wondering if the kids in school now could solve these CAPTCHAs easily.

So Wednesday’s news that Ticketmaster is abandoning CAPTCHA feels like a sort of vindication to me. It hasn't just been me. The system is to blame.

If, though, this is progress after a fashion, let's not take it to mean that computers are getting close to passing as human. CAPTCHA set out to be a way for a computer to be able to distinguish between one of its fellows and a person. The Turing test asks whether a human can make that same judgment, which is a very different question.

Ticketmaster customers will now face “phrases, questions or ads” during check-out. One would imagine that asking questions about the world might be a risky proposition, ignorance being rather more widely distributed than one would hope. It's hard to come up with questions that can be reliably answered by any human being that stumbles across a given website. Another CAPTCHA alternative relies on authenticating users’ identities via credentials issued to them by Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and the like. CAPTCHA, for all its frustrations, was a mechanism that allowed for anonymity. You didn't have to prove who you were, merely that you were. The loss of anonymity online brings a whole new set of headaches, more enduring and harder to parse than the transient ones brought about by a struggle with wobbly characters.

But I won't miss trying to tell a 0 from an O, H from 4l, or q from g. It will make a funny story for future generations, that for about a decade at the beginning of the century, we'd agreed as a society that the defining mark of our shared humanity was an ability to read bad handwriting.

Read the full story here:  http://www.slate.com/blogs/

For more information and advice on anything you have read here please contact us or visit our website here: www.clicknetworks.co.uk

Click Networks - Cloud Services

View our brand new range of cloud services below and visit our website for more information on how these services can benifit your business and save you money! Click Cloud Services: http://www.clicknetworks.co.uk/Cloud/Cloud.aspx

 

For more information and for what services Click Networks can provide please contact our IT Support Experts today! Tel. 0141 530 9116 or email info@clicknetworks.co.uk

Visit our website: www.clicknetworks.co.uk

Web 're-defining' human identity says chief scientist

Social networks such as Facebook and on-line gaming are changing people's view of who they are and their place in the world, according to a report for the government's chief scientist.

The report, published by Prof Sir John Beddington, says that traditional ideas of identity will be less meaningful.

One consequence could be communities becoming less cohesive.
This change could be harnessed to bring positive changes or if ignored could fuel social exclusion, says the study.

"This can be a positive force, exemplified by the solidarity seen in the London 2012 Olympics or a destructive force, for example the 2011 riots," says the report.

"Due to the development of smart phones, social networks and the trend towards (greater) connectivity disparate groups can be more easily mobilised where their interests temporarily coincide."

"For example," it says, "a 'flash mob' can be mobilised between people who have not previously met".

The report, entitled "Future Identities," says that near continuous access to the internet, termed "hyper-connectivity", will drive profound changes to society over the next 10 years.
'Hyper-connectivity' Prof Beddington commissioned the study as part of the Government Office for Science's Foresight programme - the influential Foresight reports look ahead to highlight emerging trends in science and technology with a view to informing policies across government departments.

 

"The most dynamic trend (in determining identity) is hyper-connectivity," Prof Beddington told BBC News.

"The collection and use of data by government and the private sector, the balancing of individual rights and liberties against privacy and security and the issue of how to tackle social exclusion, will be affected by these trends," he said. "I hope the evidence in today's report will contribute to the policy making process."

This latest report on identity undertook 20 separate reviews in which leading UK and international experts assessed research in computer science, criminology and social sciences.

It states that the changing nature of identities will have substantial implications for what is meant by communities and by social integration. The study shows that traditional elements that shape a person's identity, such as their religion, ethnicity, job and age are less important than they once were.
Instead, particularly among younger people, their view of themselves is shaped increasingly by on-line interactions of social networks and on online role playing games.

The study found that far from creating superficial or fantasy identities that some critics suggest, in many cases it allowed people to escape the preconceptions of those immediately around them and find their "true" identity. This is especially true of disabled people who told researchers that online gaming enabled them to socialise on an equal footing with others.

  Social networks also helped people organise during riots in 2011

 

"The internet can allow many people to realise their identities more fully, " the authors write. "Some people who have been shy or lonely or feel less attractive discover they can socialise more successfully and express themselves more freely online".

The report points out that in 2011, 60% of internet users were members of a social network site, a huge surge in usage, up 43% from 2007. Consequently, it says that there may greater political activism using these networks as was seen in the revolution in Tunisia and the mobilisation of dissent in Egypt and Libya.

There will also be a blurring of work and social identities as photos and details of people's personal lives become increasingly public on social networking sites. The report cites a hypothetical example of how a young person was denied promotion because her employer found drunken photos of her from her university days.

The report says that as the distinction between online and real world identities diminishes criminals are likely to try and exploit the many new forms of interlinked data relating people's identities and from social media and professional and financial websites in order to steal identities.

Read the full story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21084945 or contact the IT Support Specialist at Click Networks with any questions about anything you have read here. Please visit our website: http://www.clicknetworks.co.uk

Facebook Launch Rival to Google Search

Social-media giant wants new tool to keep users on site and grab a slice of sizeable advertising revenue tied to search.

Facebook wants each journey on the web to begin and end on its site. Its first significant move into search is designed to provide all the answers to users' questions: which of my friends like Rihanna? How many of my friends speak German? Which TV shows are my colleagues watching?

Graph Search, which was announced by Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, is a clear statement of intent. It is designed for the age of the social web, when internet users spend more time on Facebook or Twitter than they do searching the outside web.

How does it work? Users can search their friends, based on the information they have given Facebook permission to publish. For example, users will be able to quickly find "photos of my friends taken in Paris, France" or "Restaurants liked by friends in London".

Zuckerberg described Graph Search, in typical start-up fashion, as the "beta of version one". But he also described it as the "third pillar" of Facebook, after the news feed and timeline. He later said Graph Search could be a business in its own right – a remark that will prompt anxiety among Google executives.

The announcement – the first since Facebook's disastrous initial public offering in May last year – was strategically timed, ahead of its fourth-quarter earnings call on 30 January. Facebook has already succeeded in lifting its share price above $30. The announcement of Graph Search also comes as Facebook faces questions about whether its growth to 1bn users is petering out. Facebook's UK user total dropped by 600,000 in December, according to data from SocialBakers, a social-media monitoring company.

Nate Elliot, a social-media analyst at Forrester Research, said the graph search announcement was part of Facebook's ambition to keep users coming back to its site.

"Facebook's worst nightmare is a static social graph," he said. "If users aren't adding very many new friends or connections, then their personal network becomes less and less active over time. Terrifyingly for Facebook, that threat is very real. We haven't seen significant growth in the average number of friends per user recently.

"Graph Search seems designed to encourage users to add more friends more quickly. If it means users' personal networks change more frequently, and become more active, then that keeps them coming back to the site – which is vital to Facebook's success. If Facebook and Bing can bring elements of Graph Search to Facebook's web search tool, then that's great. But it's not the point; the point is to keep Facebook users more active within the site."

Facebook was quick to rebut many of the privacy questions that it expects to be raised about Graph Search, which essentially helps to surface photographs or other data which before may have been buried. Graph Search does not make public any information that was not previously public, so users need not rush to change their privacy settings. But some users may be surprised to be presented with photos that they did not know they had been tagged in.

Zuckerberg, a man whose past tangles with privacy still make him visibly nervous on stage, spent longer talking about privacy safeguards than at any other Facebook announcement I have seen. That may be a symptom of Facebook becoming a public company, or it could simply be a sign that it is simply growing up.

Whatever the cause, the prize for getting graph search right first time is very real: search makes up the largest portion of digital advertising spending in the US, up from $15.1bn in 2011 to $17.58bn in 2012. And which company commands 74.5% of that $17.58bn ad spend? Google.

Read the full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/15/facebook-graph-search-google-user-decline or contact the IT Support Experts at Click Networks today, visit our website: http://www.clicknetworks.co.uk/  

Whats new from Click Networks in 2013

Happy New Year from everyone at Click Networks
New for 2013 - Professional IT Support without hidden costs

Why choose Click Networks to support your IT
Quite simply, we have been around long enough to understand what our clients want and what they expect to pay for. Therefore we have listened and are proud to be different from most other IT companies.

It is very common practice in our industry for most IT companies to charge anything from £95- £115 per hr to install a single PC, Printer or even a smartphone!!

Click Networks do not charge our managed service clients for installing new Printers, PC's, or even migrating data from their old PC's to the new ones. This could save you £100's each time you add or replace some PC's.

We even offer our managed service clients a free configuration service to set up their Smartphones, Ipad's Tablets and similar devices. This costs us time and money, but we believe it demonstrates our total commitment to providing a unique managed IT Service.

If you want to save money in 2013 with your IT Support and associated services, call our sales team today on 0141 530 9116 and see how much we could save you.

Personal Best

Please buy this amazing book http://ow.ly/f9Npq  from #@clicknetworks good friend #@BarryDuddy proceeds go to charity and less fortunate people.
 

The book was written with the asssitance of many famous people who have shared their insights into how to become a success at whatever you do in life.

PS: Please also check out the partners section here as there maybe some things of interest for you...

Happy reading,

Click team. 

Talk about double standards for business???

US auction site eBay has paid only £1.2m in tax in the UK, according to an investigation by the Sunday Times.

The newspaper said that its tax bill in 2010 comes despite eBay's UK subsidiaries generating sales of £800m.

The auction site - which also owns PayPal - responded that it "complies fully with all applicable tax laws". 

The report comes after coffee giant Starbucks was also accused of paying just £8.6m in corporation tax in the UK over 14 years.

According to the Sunday Times, eBay had sales of £789m during 2010 in the UK at its four British subsidiaries. Using its worldwide profit margin of 23%, it would have made a profit in the UK of £181m, leading to corporation tax owed of £51m.

Instead, it paid £1.2m, the report said.

Read the full article here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20022365

HOW SAFE IS YOUR DATA?

This was a very hard lesson to learn for a Police Force.

Don't scrimp when it comes to protecting your valuable company data, or you could be very sorry.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-19960966

Contact Click Networks to ensure you are doing all you can to keep your data secure and away from the wrong people.

Regards
The Click Team.

The IT projects keep coming in thick and fast at Click Networks.

We have recently completed another excellent new Website for a brand new Financial advisers client of ours, Rimmington Thomson based at Charring Cross in Glasgow.  

http://www.rimmingtonthomson.com/ 

They are very pleased with our work and as a result we have been commissioned to help with other projects, such as Microsoft Office 365 implementation, IT support and we have even implemented a social media strategy for them too.

If we can help with designing your Website, or offer any of our other excellent IT services, we would be delighted to hear from you too.

Thanks from all at the Click team.

IT Support Glasgow - Right On Your Doorstep

Click Networks have recently moved office to a fantastic city centre location to provide even better IT Support for companies in Glasgow, surrounding areas and across Scotland.

With the majority of our new and existing clients being city centre based we felt it was worth the hassle of uprooting all our equipment and staff to bring our services directly to your door.
Being an established family run business providing cost effective IT support & the best customer care for many years, we were willing to go that extra mile for our clients. 

With faster response times the move has not only allowed us to spend more time on site it has allowed us even better communication with clients providing them with only the services they actually need we are rarely beaten on support costs.

To celebrate this move and our expansion we have re-launched Click Networks with more new IT services,  more support staff, a new brochure and a fantastic new website. You can now raise a support ticket directly from our website in a matter of seconds which gets sent directly to our support engineers in the field.

You can visit our new website here: http://www.clicknetworks.co.uk

Welcome

Welcome to the Clicknetworks blog, where you can keep up to date with what's happening within the world of IT along with personal comments from the Clicknetworks team in East Kilbride, Scotland.

The aim of this blog is to post and share knowledge about IT Support in Glasgow and new web technologies and software application development. We hope to feature handy helpful tips for small businesses and inspiring others into action.

Stay tuned for more updates as they come.