The Clean Up Tool We’ve all been a part of an email chain that ultimately becomes useless, with redundant and repeated messages adding more confusion than context. To counter this, Microsoft Outlook offers the Clean Up tool. In an email conversation, users send messages back and forth to one another and create a thread. However, these threads can sometimes pull in and duplicate the same messages, over and over – especially as participants respond back and forth. Using the Clean Up tool, you can delete these redundancies from your email chains, or even from entire folders. To clean up an individual conversation, select that conversation thread in your inbox. Find the Clean Up icon in the ribbon on top of Outlook and click it to display a drop-down menu, giving you the option to Clean Up Conversation, Clean Up Folder, or Clean Up Folder & Subfolders. Selecting one will prompt you to confirm your choice, allowing you access to your Clean Up settings, which allow you to further define how and which things should be cleaned up. Scheduling Your Messages There are plenty of reasons that you’d want an email to be timed just right – for example, would you rather your employees email you at the end of the day with information relevant to the next, or would you prefer to get emails pertinent to that day, first thing? Outlook allows you to choose, offering the ability to schedule messages with Future Delivery. After writing the email as you normally would, access Options, and find the Delay Delivery option. Clicking it will open a Properties box, which will include a checkbox labeled “Do not deliver before” under Delivery Options. Selecting this box and providing a date and time will ensure the message will not be delivered before then. Once you’ve done so, close the Properties box and send your message as you ordinarily would. Using Outlook Shortcuts Like many of today’s solutions, Outlook offers keyboard shortcuts to make your use of the program more efficient. These shortcuts cover a variety of functions, from composing new messages (Ctrl+Shift+M) to moving a message from one place to another (Ctrl+Shift+V). You can easily insert hyperlinks by pressing Ctrl+K, or flag an important message using Ctrl+Shift+G. These are just a few basic ways that you can start to manage your Outlook emails a little more effectively. To be notified whenever we have more handy IT tips and other technology blogs, subscribe today!
There are only a few major smartphone manufacturers as the technology needed to make (and distribute) them takes a lot of capital. These major manufacturers are mostly from Asia, but have parts made in different locations all over the world. The modern smartphone features near-ubiquitous connectivity, desktop-like processing power, and enough storage to facilitate the millions of applications that are constantly being developed for the two main OSs. The best ones feature mics and speakers that are protected from water and sand, multiple cameras that are capable of 4K video, and batteries that only slowly degrade and can be active for half-a-day on a single charge. What’s worse, these manufacturers are doing it at a time when the devices they’ve created last a few sales cycles and result in their margins noticeably shrinking. This has created less competition at the top of the market, with more people using devices manufactured by a limited amount of companies. Smartphone Markets A brief look at the global smartphone market will show you that there are now only six manufacturers with a market share of eight percent or more. They are Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo. Most of these manufacturers service emerging or Asian markets, while Apple and Samsung are the only truly global brands. In the United States, Apple is the largest distributor of smartphones with a 41 percent market share, with only Korean manufacturers Samsung (21 percent) and LG (13 percent) holding more than 10 percent of the market. Things are basically the same in much of the English-speaking world. In the UK and Australia, Apple comes in with 49 percent and 55 percent of the market share, respectively. Samsung is a distant second with 29 percent and 22 percent, respectively. In mainland Europe, however, Samsung’s market share is nearly twice Apple’s. Overall there are over 1.5 billion smartphones shipped every year for a market that is now at nearly three billion people. 82 percent of people in the UK and 77 percent of Americans own one. Predictably, China is actually the largest smartphone market with nearly 800 million smartphone owners. Conversely, there are some places where smartphone adoption hasn’t reached high percentages. Despite having nearly 1.4 billion people, the smartphone ownership rate in India is only around 28 percent. Other potential growth markets include Indonesia (27 percent), Pakistan (14 percent), and several coastal African nations (6-to-13 percent). Innovation of the Modern Smartphone Steve Jobs is roundly credited as the “inventor” of the smartphone. Whether this is true or not is up for debate, but people in-the-know about such things say that companies were working on something like this for a decade leading up to the iPhone’s 2007 launch date. Apple’s iPhone was the first smartphone to market, but even though it was only a dozen years ago now, the devices have changed precipitously. Innovation of technology (and of the devices) has been a major driving force in pushing the use of devices. As we stated earlier billions of people actively use (and periodically purchase) smartphones and they are always looking for new ways to use their devices. So while the fundamental technologies found inside these devices have been pretty static, any new tools, and improved specifications show up on all manufacturer flagships eventually. The best phones are no longer […]
Staff Training – Without the ability to spot potential threats before falling for them, your employees are apt to get caught up in scams, ransomware attacks, and phishing attempts. Every level of the business needs to be taught how to spot these threats and mitigate them – including you – so there’s less of a chance of these threats being successful. Network Protection – Any device on your network, as well as your network itself, needs to have sufficient security solutions protecting it. You should have antivirus and antimalware installed, as well as content filtering to prevent unseemly and risky web surfing, and firewalls to block incoming threats… along with too many other protections to list here. Password Policies – A survey by the UK-based National Cyber Security Centre revealed a few telling things in an analysis of passwords involved in data breaches around the world. For example, here was the top 10 list of common passwords in breaches: 1. 123456 2.123456789 3. qwerty 4. password 5. 111111 6. 12345678 7. abc123 8. 1234567 9. password1 10. 12345 You probably noticed a pattern here. You need to have password policies in place that prevent these kinds of passwords from being utilized. Preferably, your users would use a passphrase, as these can be more secure than the typically recommended randomized password… if devised properly. Keep Software Updated – The majority of software updates are intended to shore up security concerns, so putting off updates for no reason is risky behavior. Make sure that you remain diligent about updating your solutions. Prepare for the Worst – The unfortunate truth is that some cyberthreats are bound to slip by your defenses at some point – that’s just statistics. Therefore, you need to have an ace up your sleeve – or a solid, bulletproof backup solution. Of course, you also need to have a strategy mapped out for any scenario that might force you to use it. For assistance in handling any of these tasks (and more), reach out to SRS Networks. We can provide the assistance necessary for you to accomplish these goals effectively and efficiently. To learn more, call (831) 758-3636.
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