Tech Blog | Ease Technologies

Office Mobile for iPhone

June 16, 2013 10:47:31 PM by Dave Kile

Microsoft has finally introduced Office Mobile for iPhone. The much anticipated app for business users includes modified versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The rumors for this app have been circulating for well over a year. Subscribers to Office 365 can enjoy the ability to access, view, and edit their Office documents.

Not surprisingly, Office Mobile is not a full functioning version of the Office suite found for desktop computers, but does provide some key features many mobile users will enjoy. The Office Mobile for iPhone users can create and edit new Word and Excel documents. PowerPoint documents can be viewed and edited after they have been created on another device. Graphics and charts work quite well and are easily viewed even on the small screen of a smart phone. All documents edited on the iPhone can then be saved back for use with other users and different platforms.

The Office Mobile version of Word has some clunky ways of editing fonts in a document, but the traditional word editing basics are intact. The commenting feature gives a user the ability to give feedback to a document they might be reviewing. The commenting features seem to be something Microsoft figured would be an important aspect for a mobile user. Surprisingly, the dictation integration with Apple’s voice recognition software, Siri, works seamlessly. I was able to quite easily knock off a short Word document by just inputting the text with Siri dictation.

With Office Mobile, Excel workbooks, worksheets, graphs, charts, and SmartArt graphics are a big part of using spreadsheets. Certainly smaller size Excel spreadsheets work best, but the charts are pretty quick and easy to create. I had some difficulty editing an existing Excel company expense spreadsheet. I couldn’t tell if it was a bug with the app or something in the spreadsheet file.

While you can’t create new PowerPoint presentations, it does provide editing and viewing functionality. Not that a smartphone is a great form factor for a slideshow, but it can be done. Presenting through your iPhone and Office Mobile via Airplay to a TV works just fine.

Smartphones are a difficult screen size for much of any content creation. The limited screen real estate and over sized input device (the human finger) can make even edits a bit difficult even for someone agile with smartphones. The best use of the Office Mobile for iPhone is for users to really view documents with some modest editing. So if you are in pinch and need to review a that shorter memo or small spreadsheet this will work will.

Some of the real power Microsoft is offering is greater integration with it’s existing Office 365 offering. This really demonstrates Microsoft’s direction with cloud, mobile and connectivity. While the app itself is not peculiarly feature rich, access to an existing companies Sharepoint site and Skydrive are very powerful. One of the biggest difficulties most mobile users find is viewing and sharing documents within teams. Microsoft has done better than most with these capabilities now for business users.

Pros:

Integration with Microsoft's cloud storage SkyDrive and your organizations 365 Sharepoint.

Cons:

No iPad version available or announced.

Costs:
The app is free, but requires an existing license to Office 365, which is the way the app is designed.

Founded in 1993, Ease Technologies is an IT Support and technology services firm that supports clients and markets seeking flexibility, creative talent and high reliability in a business partner in the Baltimore, Washington, DC and Fairfax regions. As part of our services, Ease provides consulting for VOIP and computing systems.

VOIP for Small Business

May 27, 2013 6:29:36 PM by Dave Kile

posted in business | mobile

Many traditional phones systems required organizations to lease phone lines, PBX services and equipment in five year agreements. New choices in small business telephony services offer much lower costs and more features especially for mobile workers. Voice over IP (VOIP) for small and medium size business is the new standard in office phone systems.

Many work forces are not tied to their offices as they did several years ago. Mobile workers, remote employees and business continuity considerations require greater flexibility in telephone communication systems for organizations.

IT Support

VOIP is turning out to be the preferred offering with a much better price value over older systems. VOIP technology takes your phone calls and runs them over your existing Internet connection. Your old PBX can now be a hosted cloud VOIP server by a phone provider. More often than not you can purchase your phone handsets and not even be tied to a long term lease for that equipment.

Calls are still made from your office desk phone in the same manner, however the call is then routed out on the internet and then handed of at the site VOIP server to a POTS line, cell number or even back to your office inter office call. Essentially your phone becomes a network node in your network like your computer or printer. The phone calls themselves get translated to data packets like emailed and sent across the Internet.

In situations like storms or other emergency's, calls can be routed or transferred from the office to locations where you employees are located. In the event of anticipated event our employees actually take their desk phones home with them and plug them into their home networks. The phones find the VOIP cloud phone server and automatically start working. Customers communication does not change.

The same holds true for an employee that need some extended leave and they can just take their office phone home or to the beach house.

There are a host of other features like voice mail transcription and voice mail to email forwarding too. Enhanced reporting and specialized international call plans seem to be widely available.

So if you are a small business of five in an office or a widely scattered team of 30 there are plenty of new VOIP small business telephony options are available.

Founded in 1993, Ease Technologies is an IT Support and technology services firm that supports clients and markets seeking flexibility, creative talent and high reliability in a business partner in the Baltimore, Washington, DC and Fairfax regions. As part of our services, Ease provides consulting for VOIP and computing systems.

Tags: business , cloud , communications , IT Support , phones , technical , telephony , travel , VOIP

Ok Glass I'm a Nerd

May 07, 2013 10:58:21 PM by Dave Kile

posted in mobile

It is generally regarded in the tech industry that wearable computers will be the next big thing. There has been some early products from Nike and rumors of watches coming from Apple in the near future. Google Glass is one of the first products being announced by the larger tech companies into this space and is getting quite a bit of media attention.

So Glass is a wearable computer that fits on your face much like a set of glasses. Some people might not even recognize that it is a computer. It has a small screen positioned over your right eye to see information much like a heads up display (HUD) and camera for capturing images pointed straight out in front of you.

The computer itself is built into the frame along with a battery and other motion sensors. Glass then can use your smartphone via bluetooth to push and pull data. Google Glass is it's own computer and does all the interacting with the user on the display.

The concept is to provide useful information to the user in a hands-free environment. Google Glass will be able to display information to the user in the form of emails, text messages, weather, time, appointments, news and even location based information. Google is already offering this type information within their mobile smartphone app called Google Now for IOS and Android. Most of the features in Glass will be in new applications yet to be developed.

The camera feature enables the user to capture still and video images. This functionality has raised such a stink it is getting the product banned in places like casinos and bars before it has even been released. There will be a lot more the issue these wearable cameras even more so when phones first had cameras added.

Google Glass

Control of the Glass computer is done through voice commands or a touch sensitive controller on the side of the frame. The voice command to activate the computer is "Ok Glass". There has been some fun poked at the product at SNL Weekend Update with some fun on how it might work.

This first offering is in a very limited release. Right now selected developers, media and high profile technorati seem to be getting their hands onto them.

The product is very limited today in functionality, but like any concept product and in early in stages of development it has a lot of potential. New applications are quickly being created and will likely offer new uses not yet imagined. The Apple II computer was first released in 1977 with only the OS and one application. It was not until 1979 with the release of the popular VisiCalc spreadsheet did the computer get some attention and value.

Right now the earlier adopter price to be a hipster nerd with Glass is $1,500, you have to be selected by Google and wait for some time before one gets shipped to you. Mainstream Nerd Acceptance (MNA) will not start until 2014 and with an expected price drop of something closer to $500.

There has been a lot of good technology that society has deemed just too nerdy and wasn't embraced for a lot of reasons like the Segway, bluetooth headsets and even video conferencing. Whether or not Glass will follow the fate of a Segway or an Apple II only time will tell.

Founded in 1993, Ease Technologies is an IT Support and technology services firm that supports clients and markets seeking flexibility, creative talent and high reliability in a business partner.

Tags: android , apps , glass , google

Flipboard Update Lets Readers Create Magazines

March 26, 2013 11:15:56 PM by Dave Kile

posted in iPad | business | Apple

My daily routine always includes starting my morning with coffee and a read through Flipboard. This app for iPad lovers has become one the most poplar news readers and Android, too. The mobile app provides a visually easy way to assemble and read all your favorite online information media sources into one convenient location on your tablet or smartphone.

The Flipboard 2.0 update provides a new straightforward way to assemble a variety of photos, articles, videos and other online content into personalized magazine collection. With an easy search through your current feeds or even something new across the Internet and you can populate a specific magazine to your interests. Once started it can be shared with others and updated over time. There is an option for your magazines to be private if you wish as well.

The magazine is then reliant on you to add more stories as an option to keep it a dynamic magazine. It could just be a static publication capturing an event like the 2012 Elections and be a one time publication. The possibilities of this feature can make way for a lot of new ideas and shared publishing opportunities on Flipboard.

Flipboard 2.0 provides expanded discovery with a new content guide. Users can follow picks from Flipboard, other readers and get notifications. The content guide provides a way to navigate throughout all areas of the app and search for new news feeds from Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube and more.

Other new updates include a comments feature, enhanced page turning and "flip" stories from your browser to Flipboard. Not in this announcement, but still hoping they will release a web based offering as well sometime.

This latest update to Flipboard provides faster, easier and more expanded features to personalize your mobile media experience. Flipboard 2.0 can be found in the iTunes Store for IOS devices and coming soon for Android.

Founded in 1993, Ease Technologies is an IT Support and technology services firm that supports clients and markets seeking flexibility, creative talent and high reliability in a business partner.

Tags: android , apps , ipad , tablets

Evernote gets hacked, users to change passwords now

March 03, 2013 10:49:26 PM by Dave Kile

posted in Security

Over the weekend the popular mobile application and service Evernote acknowledged that it discovered some suspicious activity on their networks. As a result they sent out a notice which included the statement, "As a precaution to protect your data, we have decided to implement a password reset." The full statement can be found here on the Evernote Blog.

facebook

There is no suggestion that any of the 50 million users were compromised, but the activity raised enough of a concern by the company to initiate the password reset across the board. Evernote has done the right thing by first acknowledging the issue and then taking steps to quickly remedy the situation with users. Glad to see that they acted so responsibly with the situation.

In recent weeks there have been a host of declared compromises from Twitter, Apple, Facebook and the Washington Post. These are just a few of the publicly disclosed hacks and there are countless more that are never divulged by all types of businesses. Just over the weekend I was privy to a significant compromise on a enterprise account that happened last week in which federal authorities were brought in to investigate. This one probably won't hit the papers and the situation goes beyond just a private business issue with the feds being involved.

In most security circles it widely agreed that the cyber attacks on businesses have been going on for some time and only more recently are some of these being openly being acknowledged. You don't hear about it, but you can be darn sure hackers are going for the money and banks, like always, are prime targets. The source and type of attacks are coming from all directions and under a multitude of schemes.

As a user what should you do? If you use Evernote your will be forced to change your password, if you have not done so already. Make sure to choose a new sequence of at least eight letters, numbers and characters. A longer and more complex sequences are best. Users should change the passwords to other non-Evernote accounts that may have shared that same username and old password. So, if you use the same email and password for LinkedIn or your bank as you do with Evernote, take the time to change those passwords right away.

The practice of using the same passwords, while convenient, is not a safe approach for this very reason. Even if you don't use Evernote frequent changes to all your passwords is highly advised and more suggestions can be found here on my post from last year Secure your Internet Passwords.

Founded in 1993, Ease Technologies is an IT Support and technology services firm providing Managed Services in Baltimore, Washington DC and Virginia.