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Dr. Bob Spencer - Welcome to my 2012 Blog What's Past is Past, but you can travel back in time; Bob's Blogs from previous years. 2009, 2010, 2011 |
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The recent court ruling in the case of
Pippins v. KPMG LLP may have serious ramification for
your company, the electronic data you retain and how long
you retain it. Ask yourself some pretty simple questions,
like; if I am involved in litigation tomorrow, or one of my
clients is (for accountants in practice,) what should I
know? What should I have ready? Do my people know what to do
if we are subpoenaed? How should I react? According to
my good friend
Brian
Tankersley, CPA "KPMG estimates the cost of data
preservation required by this court order to be $100MM.
While this number is probably high, the fact that the court
ordered them to retain this volume of data illustrates why
e-discovery is a big issue for everyone.
I am often asked is there a secure way to send someone a
one-time message. An example might be sending the password
to access an account. You would to send the message without
lengthy encryption or time consuming method, and the person
you are trying to reach never picks up their phone. Try
https://oneshar.es/
Microsoft says Office 15 will be the “most ambitious undertaking” ever by the company’s Office Division. This version will simultaneously update Office software for the PC, mobile, cloud services and servers. It’ll provide new versions of: Office, and its core programs of Word, Excel and PowerPoint Office 365, Exchange, email-management tool, SharePoint, the enterprise content management system, Lync, an enterprise messaging and conferencing tool, Project, a project-management program, and Visio, a diagram editor.
Microsoft continues to push into the mobile realm, and last year, for the first time, released bing, OneNote, and SkyDrive for operating systems other than Windows, including iOS. Office 15 is in limited preview release now, beta should hit this summer, but Office 15 release to the general public is not expected Windows 8 hits the market mid-year. Office 15 will be compatible with Windows 8 and Windows 7, according to Microsoft.
I expect to see enhancements for the suite and am very pleased to see Visio and Project moving into the suite as well. Microsoft moved OneNote from being part of the Office System of products, to part of the Office Suite with Office 2007. So bringing Visio and Project in as well further solidifies the suite in corporate America and Education.
Believe it or not, the common computer mouse can either cost you money, or make you money (by improving your level of productivity.) If you still have the mouse that shipped with your computer - it is most likely costing you money, as most vendors include the cheapest mouse possible in a bundled price (same is true for the keyboard.) Buying a high-resolution mouse that feels right for the way you work is important. Picking the right mouse means knowing your preferred way of holding a mouse, and which models feel best to you. Do yourself, or perhaps a coworker, and buy a good mouse today.
No, that is not supposed to be BYOB! BYOD is "Bring Your Own Device" and addresses the consumerization of the workplace. Employees are continuing to bring their own electronic devices into the office, and the simple act of them using personal Smartphones and Tablets to store business data opens a number of inherent risks that business owners should be prepare for in advance. It is critical that you develop a sound BYOD policy, document and train your people, then roll in out and enforce it. BYOD programs include not only personal devices but the use of desktop virtual workspaces as well.
For some of you that are more technical the term BIOS is familiar. The Basic Input Output System specification has been with us for more than three decades. However, BIOS has lived well beyond its time, more than 30 years, and it has changed very little in that time. Windows 8 will see BIOS, as we know it, go away and the emergence of Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, or UEFI. The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is essentially the next generation of BIOS. It’s a system that potentially offers new and more advanced control of the boot-up process. If your PC is less than two or three years old, chances are good that it already has UEFI capabilities. Chances are very good that you didn’t know that, because the hardware manufacturers have been carefully keeping the old BIOS interface as your default boot system. But that will change with Windows 8. I recommend that technicians read Woddy Leonhard's recent article and review your systems today, non-techs but those with a curious interest will also find this a good read.
More individuals will be attempting to access your website via mobile and other unique devices (like Internet TV) this year than ever before. All the browser vendors will be releasing updated browser software (HTML 5 and much less focus on Flash) and there will be more competitors (such as specialized browsers from Amazon and Sony.) This means you need to make sure your site is accessible, attractive and conveys your message well across many platforms. This article from Justin Spencer, with Analytics Pros, has several valid tips to follow on the Pitfalls of Launching a Redesigned Site.
One of our goals for the K2 Team, www.k2e.com, this year is to present more content on how to utilize Tablets (which include iPads) in your everyday business world. Be start in 2011 with a focus on consuming content, but 2012 will be more about Apps and Processes. This recent article from the Intuit Small Business Blog on How Tablet PCs can Benefit Your Small Business lays out 9 ways to use a Tablet for work. A good place to start.
More to follow over the year, and it would be great to hear what works for you, and what is not working so great, in integrating an Tablet into your office routine.
If you have an AT&T user and have been waiting for 4G LTE, you time may have arrive. If you have and AT$T LTE phone and live in one of the 11 initial market areas, you should not have 4G LTE. AT&T has flipped the switch on its 4G LTE (long-term evolution) network in 11 markets; these include, New York City, Los Angeles, San Fransciso, Austin, Chapel Hill, Oakland, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh, San Diego and San Jose. That brings the total number of areas AT&T customers can get LTE to 26, or about 74 million people, according to the carrier. If you are not in one of these cities, hold on, AT&T says they should have LTE fully deployed by the end of 2013. For those who are not sure what all this means, LTE is the latest and greatest wireless network technology, connecting phones and modems to the Internet on cell phone networks at speeds much faster than 3G, or even slower “4G” technologies like WiMax. AT&T began rolling out LTE network in September of 2011, becoming the second carrier to do so. Verizon went first in December 2010. The had hoped to benefit from the acquisition of T-Mobile, but when that fell through, they began aggressively expanding their offering.
You might be surprised how many apps have permission to post to your Facebook, Twitter and other accounts. This means they can impersonate you and your Social Network presence. Since so many people trust the people they follow, thinking you made a post may be the same as a recommendation! Find out quickly and easily which Apps have Permissions to your accounts by going to www.mypermissions.org. It may only take two minutes to clean-up your Apps.
YouTubeGet is an all-in-one software designed to make quick and easy work to download YouTube videos and convert them. Offering a multitude of methods to acquire the video, this application has all the power you need while still remaining small and easy to use. After downloading videos it will auto convert FLV files to MP4, 3GP, AVI, WMV, MOV etc. Soon, you can see YouTube videos on your MP4 or Cell phone.
Many Cable and DSL providers say they are offering high speed Internet access, but in reality speed the upload/download times vary widely at different times of the day and even based on your use. If you are downloading multimedia from Bit Torrent sites, or a big on-line game player, you may be experiencing less than advertised speeds. ISPs are increasingly deploying a variety of middle-boxes (e.g., firewalls, traffic shapers, censors, and redirectors) to monitor and to manipulate the performance of user applications. Most ISPs do not reveal the details of their network deployments to their customers. If you believe you have a right to know, then Take the Glasnost test. The goal of the Glasnost project is to make access networks, such as residential cable, DSL, and cellular broadband networks, more transparent to their customers. As you begin cleaning up your systems and preparing for the new year, this is a great time to determine if you are getting all that you think you are paying for.
Apple has hidden a field test app in iOS, which will allow you to quickly check the quality of your cellular signal by simply dialing a special code on your iPhone. The code to dial is *3001#12345#* followed by pressing Call on your iPhone, which will launch the field test app. The signal bars on your iPhone will be replaced by a number. The higher the negative number, the worse your signal is. For example, -100 is worse than -86. If you tap on the displayed number, the display toggles between the number and the normal signal bars. There is a lot more to the Field Test, but proceed at your own risk. The real benefit here is the signal quality check. Click here for more detail...
For some the idea of creating business app that run on smart phones and tablets seems out of reach. After all, you need a trained programmer to make that happen, and lots of money too. Not necessarily, a number of websites are offering tools for making an app, without knowing how to code.
Amped Wireless provides a number of devices to assist businesses in extending the range of wireless accessible devices.