Tag: Microsoft Outlook Trainers
Why Googling things yourself can hurt your computer
Call comes in, client says they downloaded Adobe and now they have junk all over their computer, their search engine is messed up and they have pornographic ads on their google page. Yep, it’s happening! Just downloading an easy program like Adobe can do this to your computer, but come on….Adobe Reader is in Google right? Of course it is, but not at the top of your Google search. It’s about 4 down. See my picture below?
It shows you a basic search in Google for Adobe Reader I just did. The real one is the 4th one down, under the “Ads” that is sometimes hard to notice. I know this because the website is actually an Adobe website, not Adobereader.com or something of the like. Very tough to tell these days folks!
But hey Lisa, Adobe is downloaded and works, so what happened?
You did get Adobe, but it was bundled in a “download manager” filled with other junk! Search engine fun and other programs that are annoying. Sometimes you can download up to 20 programs! I have spent over an hour before removing this junk.
So please be mindful when Googling and if you are not sure, don’t do anything and call us to install the programs properly, which will end up being cheaper than a virus removal.
Lisa
612-865-4475
Is it time for your business to have a company branded email?
We’re always trying to find ways to maximize our profits and minimize our expenses. But, can excessively minimizing your expenses negatively affect your business? The answer is YES. Here at Call That Girl, we many times see clients using free email services for their business needs. Now is the time to move off of the free services and move to your business branded email. The transition is easier than you think, we will help you and can set up your new email so everything matchs on your computer, iPhone, iPad, Tablet, Surface, etc. No more band-aiding your deletes and calendar appts.
If you’re using a free email service, such as Yahoo, Gmail, Comcast.net or EarthLink email for your business, it’s time to reconsider. Here are four reasons why you will benefit from using a company branded email instead:
1.) Credibility
- Increased trustworthiness
- Increased professionalism
- Stronger first impression
- Established and genuine
2.) Memorable
- Increased online identity
- Higher recall rate for past clients
3.) Organization
- Individual employee emails
- Department specific emails
- Shows clients their needs are important to you
- Allows them to easily contact the right person
- Decreases inbox clutter
- Separation of personal and work life
4.) Brand Promotion
- Allows you to promote YOUR business, not a third-party email provider
- Keeps company name in front of leads, clients, partners, etc.
- More exposure!
Bottom line: your business will thrive when you decide to transition to a company branded email! Let our specialists assist you and your team today!
3 Good Reasons Your Business Needs Paid Antivirus and Security
In today’s blog, Call That Girl is going to talk about the lesson one client learned during a routine Outlook support session on the importance of having a paid anti-virus protection, reliable data backup and secured routers for your business.
Some time ago I was working with a client on a remote Outlook project and as usual…I had them fill out my client agreement form and they stated they had been backing up and had antivirus, good deal….we moved on. If they had not had either, we would have had a short discussion on why having both, a good paid for antivirus program and a solid back up plan is important. Of course, Call That Girl sells both packages, but they were fine.
When Viruses Strike
I went ahead with the Outlook work and during this time, a virus struck one of the computers in the office. It was so bad that Century Link banned them from internet usage. The whole office was then under attack and shut down; no internet. We moved our Outlook project to the side to focus on the virus and getting their internet back on. Luckily the client had a hot spot and we could install programs from a flash drive, but could you imagine the nightmare that could have happened?
More Technical Trouble
After I tried to help them as much as I could remotely, we also found the router was not secured. Whoever installed the router did not put on a security password to log into the router; so, anyone in their building could have accessed it, got on their network and potentially hacked their systems. As far as backup, they are using local external hard drives. After this situation, we will be moving their data to the cloud – mostly because of theft or fire.
In the end, we secured their router, removed the virus, returned the internet and got back on track with the project. Slight delay…but it could have been way worse for this company.
Reasons for paid anti-virus protection!
1.) Free Anti-virus is never a good answer for a company. We prefer paid anti-virus, because it is more reliable, capturing about 90% of the attacks out there, and can be backed up with a free program like Microsoft Security Essentials to get the rest.
2.) If you are not sure about your router being secure, we do spot checks here at Call That Girl. We will remote in, check your security and if you wish, change your Wi-Fi passwords. This is a good idea, too, if you have a lot of guests. We can also set up a guest account, so they don’t have any access to network devices or computers.
3.) Go online backup, that trusty external hard drive you’re been using for years can crash at any moment, any time. Data recovery is very expensive and lightening has struck and zapped too many of my clients computers to not have backup in the cloud. The cloud is not expensive and worth every dollar.
If you and your company need some help with these issues, please call in for an appointment at 612-865-4475. We will be glad to help!
What are RSS Feeds In Your Outlook?
When you set up Outlook for the first time, welcome to RSS feeds friends! You get them set up in the installation process. You sometimes have a chance to not turn them on, but most people just blaze right by that option, so most people have RSS feeds in their Outlook. Let’s start with what RSS feeds are…and what they can do for you and how to turn them off.
RSS means “Rich Site Summary” or the average person calls it “Really Simple Syndication” or just RSS.
RSS feeds are a way to get updates from your favorite websites in your Outlook. It could be news alerts from MSN or a blog post from your favorite blogger (like me!). If you look down the folder list in your Outlook, you may see RSS with tons of blue numbers. This is common, I see it everyday here with my clients. See the example to the right for where my RSS feeds lives. For the purpose of this blog, instead of removing RSS (which you can do and we will cover in a bit) I saved up a bunch to show you. See that MSNBC News one? 8794 feeds that I didn’t really sign up for, Outlook signs you up by default when you agree to RSS feeds in the setup process. This will be removed now!
How to remove RSS feeds
In your Outlook, you need to find your email settings. See pic below. You can click on the “remove” button on each and get rid of them.
Now how do you add an RSS feed from your favorite blog? Go to the top of my website and you will see the RSS feed button. My site says “Posts” but on some websites you may see “Feeds or RSS” with the commonly known logo. If you are new, you can click on the “subscribe” button and then those feeds will be in your Outlook or whatever other program you use.
Is Pinterest the perfect camping grounds for viruses?
Pinterest is an online pinboard.
Organize and share things you love.
Now, love that virus you’re about to download.
Think you already have a virus?
Click on the black button to the right of this post to book an appointment!
And now you can send your friends right to viruses, too! Many of you might not know this part of Pinterest, but when you find a picture you love and “Pin it”, you’re basically telling your fellow pinnners to love that pic, too and that they need to click on the picture to pin to their boards. Pinterest hosts the pictures, but then when it is finally “pinned” it can take people right to the website that is hosting the virus (after clicking on the image). The website that is hosting the pictures could have been attacked by a virus and now it’s camping out on the picture, just waiting for pinnners to pin, click and download a virus in less than a minute.
What can you do? Not much. If you pin the picture virus free you will never know. If the site becomes tainted, your future pinners will probably get it after clicking on the image, unless they have awesome protection. My client that called in this a.m. had McAfee protection and it sailed right past the security features McAfee offered. He didn’t even click on the image, he typed it in manually. If you get a virus, call us at 612-865-4475 immediately!
Watch our Youtube video to find out what you should watch out for now that you know this is a possibility.
Research has turned up little information on the laws regarding Pinterest and this issue, although I did discover another virus report. To read more, I found this blog about a clever Pinterest virus sneak.
http://doktorspinn.com/2012/03/18/clever-pinterest-virus-a-first-for-the-booming-image-site/
Why peeking in the Junk Mail or Spam folder is important
Simple blog today folks.
I hear this on occasion, “I found your email in my junk folder,” so I felt there was value to writing up a blog about the junk/spam folder. When I am remoted into a computer repairing Outlook, I usually have to do an email test to insure it’s sending/receiving and many times…my email doesn’t show up on the client’s computer. The same email is in my inbox, but when I reply, it’s in their junk folder. It wasn’t junk! It was a test email and that should not be flagged period. But it is. The subject line was just “test”.
We have two things to discuss.
- Subject lines can get an email into junk
- Any email can get into junk
These two things are important to remember and you might have important emails sitting in your junk folder. I check mine daily and find tons of little goodies sitting in there. Emails from colleagues, clients, my staff, it doesn’t matter…it finds its way there. A good reminder for you is to check your junk/spam folder on occasion and make sure you’re not missing an important email.
