digitalife Tech Blog

Keeping up with changing technology is easy with digitalife's newly created blog about IT resources for your small business. You can share your questions or comments below.

12/31/09

by Joe U:

Well, another year has come and is just about gone. Is it not time to make a resolution to keep your personal identity safe? I have included a few ideas that can great decrease your exposure to falling victim to the cyber predators.

Protect your passwords. Make it a resolution not to store your passwords in documents or on sticky under your keyboard (or in that drawer right next to your keyboard). A wonderful open source option (read FREE) is KeePass. Secure passwords, account numbers, credit card numbers, etc in its password vault. Its secure clipboard clears itself after 10 seconds. Copying the password from KeePass into your application keeps keyloggers at bay. If you like it, try it on your iPhone of BlackBerry.

Encrypt your hard drive. Use the built-in operating system encryption of Windows. Use the excellent open source option--TrueCrypt. Please, pretty please. You will be happy you did when the TSA misplaces your laptop or as your laptop is driving away in a cab.

I do believe that you will be happy you made the resolution to protect yourself on the technology front.

Here's to a prosperous new year!

11/6/09

by Joe U:

If you’re like me, you correspond via email with at least a few people who aren’t disciplined when it comes to responding, even when you’ve asked for additional information. Inevitably, the request falls through the cracks and you just forget about it, until you need the information and realize the person never responded.

You could consider an action list, but that’s just one more thing to remember--Sent KC email requesting quarterly figures. Follow up in a few days with a phone call because he never remembers. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find maintaining an action list any easier than remembering sent email requests!

Outlook can help, without adding more stress to your day. There are two ways to track requests via email:

• Flag the sent message: Right-click the sent message, choose Follow Up, and click Add Reminder.
• Flag a message before sending it: Click the Follow Up button on the toolbar. Choose an appropriate flag or Add Reminder. (In Outlook 2007, click the Message tab and click Follow Up in the Options group.)

Once you’ve flagged a message, a simple sort makes them easy to track. With just a quick glance, you can determine which recipients you expect to hear from. Flagging a sent email won’t help you get a quicker response, but it will keep the message front and center so you don’t forget that you’re waiting for someone to take action.