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Applied Systems’ Hosted Exchange Retirement: What it Means for Your Agency

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Recently, many of you may have received an email from Applied Systems, notifying users about their decision to retire their Hosted Exchange and Insuremail services by the end of December 2023. This development could have significant implications for agencies relying on these services. In this video and blog post, we’ll explore how Applied Systems’ Hosted Exchange retirement might affect your agency and what strategic measures you can take to ensure a seamless transition to a new service.

A bit of history

Several years ago, Applied began hosting email for agencies using a product called Microsoft Exchange.  Exchange is a fantastic product, and back in the days of servers, this is exactly what we deployed in agencies.  But as the years went on, Exchange was increasingly designed for large organizations.  It required larger servers and more server roles.  It required special skills to manage, and it was difficult to keep secure. This meant more expense. Meanwhile, cloud alternatives were getting better and more cost effective all the time.

These days, there are far better options out there for agencies and Applied is recognizing that.  This will allow Applied Systems to reallocate time and effort into products like Epic, where their core expertise really shines. Check out this recent update from Applied Systems to learn more.

So what does this mean for your agency?

Receiving the letter doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re using the service.  So the first step is determining if this applies to you.  Your IT folks should easily be able to determine this. They’ll want to check inbound email, your copiers and scanners, and Epic DMS.

If you ARE using Applied’s email services, you’ll need to have all of your data off of those services before the end of December 2023. That’s not much time, so you need to start making a plan now to transition to another solution.  For this, I recommend Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 has become the industry standard for email, but the 365 ecosystem is much larger than that. You can use Microsoft 365 to replace servers, deliver cybersecurity, implement cloud desktops, and meet compliance requirements.

KiteTech is here to help

If you are currently using Applied’s email services, and need help migrating to Microsoft 365, we can help.  I would encourage you to reach out to Kite Technology sooner than later, so we can begin helping you plan for the change.

 

If you’re already using Microsoft 365, and you’re curious about how you can make it more effective and secure, we can help with that, as well. We have made Microsoft 365 a part of everything we do, and we would love to help you make Microsoft 365 part of everything you do. Contact us today, to learn to learn more about our Managed IT Services and Microsoft 365 Consulting. 

Jason Gobbel

Jason Gobbel

Chief Solutions Officer
Kite Technology Group

Simplify Scheduling with FindTime in Outlook

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Play Video

FindTime is a Microsoft Outlook add-in that’s very effective! Many of us struggle to manage our schedules and can spend a lot of time emailing back and forth to set a meeting time with colleagues or clients. 

FindTime streamlines this process by aggregating the availability of your contacts, helping narrow down meeting time options quickly. It is available for Outlook on Mac, PC, and the web application. Here’s how to use it!

Step 1: Install FindTime

  1. Go to MS Outlook homepage.
  2. Click on “Get Add-ins” on the top right of the homepage.
  3. Search for “FindTime” and click “Add.”
  4. Once installed, you’ll see it on the top right of your screen near the “Get Add-ins” button.

Step 2: Use FindTime to Create a Meeting Time Options Poll

  1. Start by opening a new email or replying to a client or colleague who wants to set up a meeting. 
  2. Add required attendees to your email in the “To” field. Additionally, you can add any optional attendees in the “CC” field. 
  3. Once you have your attendees selected, click on the “FindTime” button. 
  4. The FindTime panel will open on the right hand of the screen, where you can see the availability of anyone whose calendar you have “view” access for.
  5. This panel will show the availability status of the contacts you added into your email. You will then be able to see the mutual free times that are available. These options go into a poll that is sent to the client(s), so they can select their preferred option. 

Step 3: Customize Your Options

  1. In the FindTime panel, you can set options such as location, duration or meeting, and the times you’re available. You can also select an option to set up a Teams meeting.
  2. When you have adjusted all your settings, click “next.” This will add the poll to your email so that the client can see all the available options to set up a meeting. 

Step 4: Next Steps (From the Client)

  1. From the client’s perspective, they receive an email with a link with the poll to schedule a meeting. It looks something like this:
  2. The client can select their preferred meeting time, and then FindTime will go ahead and book a time that works for everyone else. 
  3. Once that’s done, FindTime sends an email confirming the meeting details and adds it to the calendar of all the parties involved. 

And that’s it! It’s as simple as gathering the availability from colleagues and sending a poll to your client. There are many benefits to FindTime:

  • Clients can choose a time that works best for them without being limited to just a few options. 
  • Streamlines communications so there are less emails back and forth. 
  • Selects options that work for all the parties identified as needing to be part of the meeting. 
  • Integrates with your calendar and MS Teams functions. 

FindTime is an underrated feature of Microsoft Outlook. Try it today to see just how helpful it is! And if you’d like to learn more technology tips and tricks or watch some of our other video tutorials, check out Kite Technology Group’s YouTube channel. Or, visit Kite Technology Group’s website to find out more about our Managed IT Services. 

Matt Saxton

Matt Saxton

Client Experience Manager
Kite Technology Group

Getting Started with Microsoft Bookings

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How many times have you double-booked yourself, forgotten about an appointment, or assigned the wrong team member to a meeting? Probably more times than you’re willing to admit! Calendar and schedule management can be tricky, especially if you’re trying to do it manually.

Microsoft Bookings is a free app that is part of the Microsoft 365 Suite. If your business pays for a Microsoft 365 subscription, it’s a free resource to help you streamline bookings and appointments for your team. Instead of manually scheduling appointments, Bookings offers a simple, streamlined option to keep track of appointments throughout the day, week, or year.

Benefits of Microsoft Bookings

With so many different calendar and scheduling apps out there, you may wonder why Bookings is worth your time. As IT professionals who are familiar with various Microsoft apps, we can easily say that there are many benefits of Bookings for your organization!

Advantages of Using Microsoft Bookings to Manage your Calendar:

  • Free Microsoft app with Microsoft 365 subscription—no need to pay for a new calendar service.
  • Easily integrates with Microsoft Teams to ensure everyone is up to date on current appointments and scheduling.
  • Option to use Bookings from desktop, mobile, or tablets.
  • Customizable based on your needs. You can adjust your appointment offerings, notifications, reminders, and other details that help both your team and clients easily manage their calendars.

If your team already uses Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft apps, incorporating Bookings into your workflow is an easy decision. It’ll streamline your process and make things simple for your team and clients.

How to Create and Customize a Bookings Calendar

Within Bookings, you can create as many calendars as you require. For example, you may create one calendar for the IT department, who offers 30-minute consultation appointments. Another calendar can then be created for the HR department, who uses the app to schedule interviews.

Let’s start by creating one calendar in the Bookings App. Follow the steps below or watch the video tutorial to create your own Bookings calendar for your organization.

Step 1: Open Bookings App

  1. Go to Office.com and sign in with your company login information.
  2. Go to “All Apps” and click Bookings.

Step 2: Create a new Bookings Calendar

  1. Open the Bookings app and click “Create a new calendar” on the home page.
  2. Input information about your company, what you offer, and the parameters of your appointment offerings. You can include information such as work hours, other colleagues to include, your services (i.e., IT support session for 30 minutes), and permissions for who can book.

Step 3: Review and Manage Your Calendar

Once you’ve made a calendar, you can book appointments, assign staff, and manage all bookings. This is what the homepage looks like.

1. Open Bookings page to manage settings and view the calendar

2. The “calendar” page shows you all the current appointments

3. The “booking page” shows you the settings and options for set up. From here you can customize:

    • Business access control.
    • Password protection.
    • Data collection and consent.
    • When people can book appointments.
    • Notifications and meeting invites.
    • Staff availability to take appointments.
    • Color and layout customization.
    • Time zone to be displayed for the person making a booking.

Step 4: Integrate Bookings with Microsoft Teams

To get the most out of MS Bookings, you’ll want to integrate it with Microsoft Teams.

  1. Go to “Apps” in MS Teams.
  2. Search for and click “Bookings” to add it to the Teams homepage.
  3. Review your Bookings schedule in Teams from two different views. From the “Schedule” view, you can see what team member has appointments and when they’re booked. The “Queue” view will give you an overview of the upcoming appointments.
  4. Review specific details of an appointment by clicking on it. It will open a window with details, where you can add notes, send an email, or text a reminder.

We always recommend spending some time playing around with the different settings and familiarizing yourself with the platform. MS Bookings is a great tool with tons of customizable options to give your team exactly what they need to stay organized and streamline their schedule and appointments.

Managed IT Services and Microsoft Consulting

If you are looking for more simple, effective, and easy to implement IT tips and tricks, make sure to follow along with us at the Kite Technology Group YouTube Channel . Our goal is to provide you with a variety of resources to help you maximize the value you get from Microsoft 365 and the technology you use.

And, if you’re looking for something more, take some time to look around our website to learn more about our Managed IT and Consulting Services. We provide strategic IT solutions to help you achieve your objectives and drive business performance.

Our proven process starts with discovering your company’s unique needs and goals, deploying best-in-class technology solutions, and continuing to delight you with proactive maintenance and on-demand help desk support. Contact us today to get started!

Adam Atwell

Adam Atwell

Cloud Solutions Officer
Kite Technology Group

Understanding the Changing Cyber Liability Insurance Landscape

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In 2022 and beyond, cybercrime is a growing and ever-evolving threat to your businesses. Large and small organizations alike need to prepare their systems to face this reality. In addition to securing your network and endpoints, having cyber liability insurance coverage is a must to conduct business against the background of the 100 billion dollar cybercriminal landscape.

What is cyber liability insurance?

For those of you who have not enrolled in a cyber liability insurance policy, it is an insurance plan that provides businesses with a combination of coverage options to help protect the company from data breaches and other cybersecurity issues such as ransomware, network hack, and more. It’s not a question of if your organization will suffer a breach, but when.

Understanding the changing cyber liability insurance landscape

Insurance carriers have significantly increased the underwriting requirements of coverage this year beyond what has been previously in place. Though requirements vary somewhat depending on the carrier, we know that they are all beyond what’s currently required under various statewide regulations. New policy AND existing policy renewals for cyber liability coverage will be impacted and meeting these requirements will likely include changes in process and the addition of new technology tools and management.

Additional areas of interest this year include:

  • Multi-Factor Authentication on Remote Connections such as VPN
  • Multi-Factor Authentication on all administrative accounts
  • Endpoint Detection & Response solutions for the organization
  • Full Device Encryption, and more.

These requirements use a mix of new software AND hardware tools to accomplish and are beyond many of the protections in place today. They also will potentially change how users work when outside of the office.

How your business can meet the changing cyber insurance requirements

As your organization approaches your cyber liability renewal period or is looking to increase your current plan coverage, please reach out to KiteTech and your Client Experience Manager. Our team can help navigate the current protections in place and work to deploy required tools to comply with this year’s changing checklists. 

If you’re not currently working with KiteTech and would like to learn how we can help, please send us a message at engage@kitetechgroup.com or visit our website to complete our contact form. We welcome the opportunity to meet with you and discuss your business technology and security needs. For additional information and valuable security resources you can download, please visit our cyber liability landing page.

Ryan Emerick

Ryan Emerick

Client Experience Manager
Kite Technology Group

Microsoft OneNote: 10 Tips to Level Up Your Notetaking

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Play Video about Microsoft OneNote: 11 Tips to Level Up Your Notetaking

Microsoft OneNote, a notetaking application included in the Microsoft 365 suite of apps, has become an essential productivity tool for businesses today. However, many people have yet to take advantage of OneNote’s capabilities and potential value at work. 

As a digital notebook that you can access anywhere, anytime on multiple devices, OneNote can serve a vital role as you gather, organize, and share information needed for your daily work. As the name suggests, it is intended primarily for taking notes, but this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what you can accomplish with OneNote.

In this video and article, I’ll share 10 OneNote features and tips that you can use to help you improve the quality of your digital notetaking and maximize the value and productivity gains you get from this awesome Microsoft tool.

1. Organize Sections & Pages

OneNote files are organized like this: each OneNote file is called a Notebook, inside Notebooks are Sections, and underneath those Sections are Pages. You can open multiple Notebooks and quickly switch between them, so you are free to organize your notes however you see fit.

In the example here, my Notebook is called “Paddy’s Pub”, my Section is called “Personnel”, and my Pages are called “Dennis”, “Charlie”, “Mac”, and “Dee”.

After you decide how your Notes will be structured, there are additional features that you can use to further improve the organization of your Notebook. 

 

First, you can color-code your Sections by right clicking the Section tab and going to Section Color to choose a color. Maybe I want my HR-related stuff to be blue, my operational stuff to be red, and my sales stuff to be green.

Then, you can create sub-pages by right-clicking on a page and choosing Make Subpage.

You may want to do this to group related pages under a common master page, like in my example where I put certain employee-specific pages under that employee’s page.

2. Use Page Templates


OneNote includes several pre-built page templates you can use to introduce formatting to your pages for specific purposes. If you go to the Insert tab on the Ribbon, then click Page Templates, the Templates pane will appear on the right where you can see all the templates available. Click the one you want to try.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you select a template, a new page will be created in the current Section. Play around with different templates to see what is available and what might be useful for you.

Once you land on a template you want to use, you can rename the new page and move it wherever you want.Shown here is the template called “Detailed Meeting Notes”, which I renamed to June 2021 to help me run this month’s staff meeting.

3. Enable Rule Lines

By default, pages in OneNote are completely blank white. But have you ever tried to take notes on a blank white piece of printer paper? It’s much easier to stay organized with notebook paper that has horizontal rule lines, so you don’t end up slanting your writing.

To enable rule lines, go to the View tab on the Ribbon, and click Rule Lines. If you click the dropdown arrow, you will see other options, like wide-spaced and grid lines.

 

 

 

 

If you like using pages with rule lines, you can click the Rule Lines dropdown and select the option Always Create Pages with Rule Lines.

4. Use Docked Windows

Docked Windows is a feature that allows you to keep a certain OneNote page on your screen while you browse other content, like web sites. Go to the View tab on the Ribbon and click New Docked Window.

When you do this, you will notice the page you currently have active will appear on the right side of your screen, and everything else on your screen will be pushed to the left side. You can resize your docked page as you want, up to half of the screen. Then, you can move other windows in and out of the left side of the screen, and they will automatically size to the edge of the docked OneNote page. This is particularly helpful if you are working on taking notes that require research online, or in online meetings where you want to see the video feed while still being able to take notes.

5. Incorporate Outside Data

One of the features of Microsoft Office that has always been highly attractive is the ability to integrate files from its different programs so that they work together. OneNote is no different; you can include other kinds of files directly on your notes page in line with your text. Spreadsheets are particularly useful to include in notes pages because you can use Excel features like formulas and conditional formatting.

To include an Excel spreadsheet in your notes, go to the Insert tab on the Ribbon and click Spreadsheet. You can either choose an existing spreadsheet or create a new one. If you choose to insert an existing Spreadsheet, you will need to choose a Spreadsheet and then you will see the below dialog box, asking if you want to Attach File, Insert Spreadsheet, or Insert a Chart or Table. If you choose Attach File, it will create a copy of the spreadsheet and show that on your page so you can open and see it. If you choose one of the other options, the data will be pulled live from the existing Spreadsheet, so edits you make there will reflect in OneNote.

In this example, the bar uses a spreadsheet for inventory management where they can keep track of items they have in stock and Excel helps them calculate how much they will need to pay to restock.

6. Record Audio and Video

Sometimes you want to include more than just text or numbers. Among many other forms of multimedia, OneNote allows you to record audio and video files and include them on your notes page.

To record Audio or video, go to the Insert tab on the Ribbon, and youwill see the Record Audio and Record Video buttons. Click either to get started.

 

You will notice the Ribbon change to a Recording tab with other controls, and at this point your recording has started (assuming your microphone and/or camera are configured properly). You can pause and resume your recording, and when you are done you can click Stop and then play your recording to ensure you got it right.

On your notes page, the recording will show a timestamped icon that you can double-click and watch or listen. Below is an example of both video and audio.

7. Use Tags

Tagging is a feature in OneNote that lets you assign labels to your notes to classify certain kinds of information. In the Home tab of the Ribbon, you will see Tags has an entire section where there are several controls. I’ll just go over a few of the main ones.

  • To Do tags should be added to tasks that need to be completed, and when added a checkbox will appear to allow you to mark tasks as complete.
  • Important tags display a star next to the tagged data and should be used to draw attention to important items in the notes.
  • Question tags identify unanswered questions in the notes that may need input from others or additional research.

Simply position your cursor on the text you want to tag, then click the tag you want from the Tags dropdown. (Expand the dropdown menu to reveal many other tags).

Here is an example of a list of items that are classified using tags.

8. Share Your Notebook


Of course, you can’t have fun with Microsoft Office if you’re not sharing, so just like all the other apps in the suite, OneNote allows you to share with others inside or outside your organization. 

To share your notebook, go to the File menu (all the way left in the Ribbon) and click Share. You will be presented with the options to add people, decide what kind of permissions you want them to have, and decide how you want to share it. You can also access this menu by right-clicking on the name of your Notebook and clicking “Share this Notebook”.

When you share a notebook with others, OneNote keeps track of a history of changes and who makes them. In this example, you can see the initials of another editor in my company who added an announcement to our meeting notes.

What’s more, if you go to the History tab in the Ribbon, you can click on Recent Edits and choose a time frame to see a timeline of changes on the right side of the screen. Choose the Sort by Author option in the dropdown and you can see changes broken out by who made the change.

9. Password Protect Your Notes

Let’s say you want to share a notebook with a team of people, but there is private information you want to keep in the notebook for convenience but not open it up to the entire team. In this case, you can password protect one or more Sections in your Notebook.

To make this happen, while inside the Section you want to protect, go to the Review tab in the Ribbon and click Password. You can also right-click the Section name and click Password Protect This Section…

Then click Set Password in the right pane and choose a password. After that, anyone who accesses that Section will need the password to access it. (Keep in mind, this includes you, so if you’d rather not need to enter this password, you should keep sensitive information elsewhere).

If you click on the Password Options link at the bottom of the right pane, you will be brought to the Advanced OneNote Options, where you can scroll down and edit some of the behavior of password protected sections.

10. Export Your Notes

Finally, when you are finished building a Notebook, or perhaps have gotten it to a point where you want to publish it and/or share it with a larger audience, you can export your notes to a few different formats. To do so, go to the File menu and click Export. Here you will see that you can export a Page, a Section, or the entire Notebook, and the formats you can use are listed on the right.

Most often, you will probably want to export to a PDF document, so it is in a published, non-editable format. This gives some permanence and presentation to your notes. In some cases, you may choose to export to a Word document (.docx) if you think the recipient will want to continue editing the notes in Microsoft Word.

Choose your settings and click Export, and all you will need to do then is choose a location and file name.

While getting the hang of some of these features may take some practice, once mastered they can really make a difference in your ability to more effectively capture and synthesize the information you need.

 

As you can see, OneNote is more of an Information Organization tool than a simple note-taking app. There are so many ways that you can use OneNote to improve your productivity and the way you collaborate with your team. The tips I shared today are just a few of the many game-changing features OneNote has to offer.

To learn more about how Kite Technology can help you leverage everything Microsoft 365 has to offer, please reach out to us to schedule a conversation. We would love to learn more about your organization and discuss your business technology needs.

Daniel Gilbert

Daniel Gilbert

Chief Operating Officer
Kite Technology Group

Quick Tip for Improving Your Computer’s Performance

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Over time, we install a lot of software applications on our computers and many of these applications are specifically coded to automatically start after every reboot and run silently in the background. They consume a lot of system resources and can affect our computers’ performance over time. 

In this video, Krystal Son, Escalation Team Lead at Kite Technology shows you how to see which software applications are configured to run in the background and how to disable them from starting unless you specifically want to open the application. By taking a few minutes to look over the list and turn some of them off, you can squeeze more performance out of your computer.

Here are the steps for disabling applications from running in the background:

On your computer, you’re going to right click the Windows Start Button and select Task Manager.

Once this window pops up, make sure you select the Startup Tab.

Here is where you can see all the applications on your computer that are configured to automatically restart and run in the background every time your computer is rebooted.

So, you can look through the list and turn off any that you don’t need to automatically run in the background. This is not disabling them or uninstalling them from your system. It’s just telling it don’t run in the background unless I specifically call on you to open.

For example, if I turn off Adobe, it doesn’t mean that I’m uninstalling the application. I can still click on Adobe and look at PDFs anytime I want. It just means that Adobe is not going to be running in the background and consuming resources from my computer.

One important thing to note is that any file-syncing services like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive – you want to make sure you keep those on because you want your files to always be saved and uploaded to the cloud.

Additionally, if you work in an insurance agency and you see anything listed here called ASI. whatever it is, make sure you keep that enabled. Those are specific services for Applied Epic and TAM to run successfully.

Once you’ve gone through your list and cleaned that up, all you need to do to make those changes take effect is reboot your computer. Just go back down to the Start Button, select the Power Button and Restart. That’s it!

We hope you found this tip helpful! If you’re a KiteTech client and would like some help with this, please contact our Help Desk and one of our technicians can assist you. 

If you’re not currently working with KiteTech and would like to learn more about our Managed IT or Consulting Services, please reach out and we’d be happy to schedule a conversation to learn more about your technology needs.

Krystal Son

Krystal Son

Escalation Team Lead
Kite Technology Group

Best Microsoft Edge Productivity Features

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Close your eyes and think back to the early 2000’s. What was your web browser of choice?

According to major sources, if you browsed the web in the early 2000’s, there was a 75% chance you were using Microsoft Internet Explorer. The next decade would dethrone Microsoft as other browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari reduced Internet Explorer’s market share to less than 10%.

Microsoft needed to act – and fast!

In 2015 Microsoft introduced a new browser called Edge, which they hoped would help them earn back their spot at the top. This move was a clear indication that Internet Explorer did not have much of a future; Edge is the new future.

Luckily, Microsoft learned from their mistakes, and virtually everyone agrees that Edge is a huge improvement over Internet Explorer. This proves true in many aspects, such as better performance, enhanced security, and wider website compatibility.

But perhaps the most noteworthy improvement is the added productivity features now available in Microsoft Edge. By using just two of these new features which I will describe, I am confident that you can improve your workflows so you can get more done in less time with fewer headaches.

Vertical Tabs

The first feature is called Vertical Tabs. The term “tab” in web browsers, which has been around for a long time now, simply refers to an open web page; we can use multiple tabs to open several different web pages and keep them inside a single window.

Vertical Tabs is a new mode in Microsoft Edge that you can toggle on or off, and it offers a highly organized view of all the tabs you have open in Edge at any given time. You can even group tabs together into a “Tab Group”, which helps you keep related tabs under a common header. 

In my example, I have created three Tab Groups because my pages fit well into three distinct categories: Microsoft, KiteTech, and Microsoft Edge Article. You can collapse a Tab Group to hide its pages if you aren’t actively using them, like I did with KiteTech in my example.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To enable vertical tabs, click on the icon in the top-left corner of the window and then click “Turn on vertical tabs”.

Collections

The second feature, called “Collections”, adds a unique way of organizing not only web pages, but also other media like images and notes. A Collection is almost like a scrapbook for your ideas. You can combine all the different kinds of pieces that make up your idea and store them in Microsoft Edge where you can continue working on it.

Take this article for example. To write it, I needed a few things: a guide to help me remember my purpose for writing and target audience; a few general requirements to keep in mind; several web pages for research; and of course, the article document itself. Rather than try to keep all this information on a place like my desktop (or worse, inside my head), I added all the relevant content into a Collection which I titled “Microsoft Edge Article”. I did not write this entire article in one sitting, so my Collection helped me pick up right where I left off when I came back to my computer and opened Microsoft Edge. When I am done, I may delete that collection, but it surely is serving me well now while I am still working on it.

 

 

To access Collections, click the 3 dots menu  in the top-right and click on Collections. You can also choose to right-click on the Collections option and choose “Show in toolbar” to keep it visible in your Edge window at all times (see screenshot to the right).

 

Finally, while each of these features offers massive value on its own, I am particularly fond of how they combine to help you work better.

If you are browsing the web and opening several related web pages, you can click the Vertical Tabs menu and choose “Add all tabs to Collections”. This will create a new Collection containing all open web pages, and from there you can continue to fill that Collection with other related materials.

 

 

After you fill a Collection with web pages, you can right-click that Collection and choose “Open all”, and all the web pages in that Collection open under a Tab Group. Again, this may be useful if a project will take multiple sittings; by combining related web pages, you can easily continue right where you left off.

 

To tell the truth, the research that went into writing this article has even opened my eyes to some functionality I didn’t know existed in Microsoft Edge. I am hopeful that you will be able to include some of these techniques in your workflows and improve your productivity.

To learn more about KiteTech’s Managed IT and Consulting Services, please don’t hesitate to reach out and schedule a conversation. We’d love the opportunity to get to know you and your business and discover how we can help you meet your technology needs. 

Daniel Gilbert

Daniel Gilbert

Chief Operating Officer
Kite Technology Group

Preventing Mobile Cyber Attacks

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Did you know that 40% of all mobile devices are vulnerable to cyber-attacks and exploits? 

As smartphones and tablets become increasingly common in the workplace, hackers aren’t necessarily just using your device to infect it with malware, but also to infect devices on the same network as you. 

In this post, we share a few helpful tips to help you stay secure when using your mobile devices.  

Apps

Applications are the lifeblood of a smartphone. However, not all are created equal. Make sure you are only installing apps that are available through your dedicated App Store. Depending on your device, this would either be Google Play for Android or Apple App Store for iPhones.

Wi-Fi

Set your applications to automatically update to ensure they have the latest security. If your wireless carrier is limiting the amount of data you are allowed to use on a monthly basis, consider turning on the feature that will only update your applications if you are connected to Wi-Fi. You can even set a schedule for when you know you’ll be home.

Browsers

The browser on your smartphone works the same way as it would on a desktop PC or a laptop. You should never save a username or password inside of a browser. If you are someone that is juggling a lot of different accounts like a lot of people today, consider using a password manager. 

Pay close attention to URLs. Just like when you’re browsing the web on a laptop or desktop, you always want to make sure that you’re on the correct site before inserting any information. 

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a pretty simplified connection method. However, there are still ways to secure yourself from attacks associated with it. Turning off automatic Bluetooth pairing is an effortless way to prevent someone from illegitimately accessing your device. Also, if you’re not using Bluetooth, it is best to just turn it off completely. This will help protect from unwanted connections.

Vishing (voice phishing)

Spam calls are becoming extremely common on a day-to-day basis. How do we protect ourselves from people pretending to be someone they aren’t? Make sure you do not reveal any personal information over the phone unless you are absolutely sure who that person is. If you are hesitant, it is best to just hang up and call the direct number of the company or person in question. Also, be wary of urgency as scammers will try tricking you into thinking that this must happen now. I can assure you it doesn’t. 

Smishing (phishing via SMS)

Text messaging is becoming the most popular communication method between individuals. This just means that more people will start using this form of communication for malicious intent. Never click links or respond. The messages sent from unknown recipients always go directly to the source. Also, standard text messages are not encrypted if nonpublic information is being requested, it is best to use another form of communication to provide these details. 

I hope that these quick tips on mobile device security have been helpful. Remember, it is important to stay just as vigilant on your mobile devices as you are on your desktop PC.

If you would like to learn more about our Managed IT and Cybersecurity Services, please feel free to reach out. We would be happy to schedule a complimentary consultation to learn how we can help you operate more securely and meet compliance regulations.

Dillon Fornaro

Dillon Fornaro

Security Engineer
Kite Technology Group

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adam atwell

Adam Atwell

Cloud solutions architect

Adam is passionate about consulting with organizations across the country to help them develop and execute a cloud adoption strategy that meets their business needs and future objectives. Adam oversees and manages our company strategy for Microsoft 365 adoption and is responsible for future growth and development inside Microsoft 365 and other cloud technologies. 

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