Tips, Tricks and Software Recommendations

Software Tips, Tricks and Recommendations

Valued Clients,

I've put together a brief summary of program tips, tricks and recommendations that I've come across over the past few months and would like to share with you to help enhance your productivity, pleasure and profitability of your IT investments.

Email

Have you ever been traveling with your laptop only to find that you can receive but not send emails from your Sympatico, Aliant, AliantZinc, Eastlink or BellAliant email address? This is a regular question I get from clients. The reason this happens is that most internet service providers block the sending of email (even if it is an email account under their domain) through their outgoing mail server if you are not using their internet connection. Finally, there is a way around this!

If you use an @eastlink.ca email address, all you have to do is enable authentication (login) to your outgoing mail server, change your outgoing server port to 587 and enable SSL.

For ANY email account (including Eastlink) Google's Gmail outgoing mail server can also be used. What you need to set this up is a gmail.com email address, and then enable authentication (login) to your outgoing mail server using your gmail.com address and password, change your outgoing server port to 465 and enable SSL.>

This setup works because the block put on by your internet service provider only applies to non-authenticated logins on port 25 of the outgoing mail server.

Too nerdy for you, but still want this setup? For the remainder of the month I'm offering on-site setup for $89.00+tax or remote for $69.00+tax. Save yourself time, frustration, and increase your mobility and decrease your reliance on webmail and enjoy a high return on investment!

Windows 7

Windows 7 is here and it is a great operating system – night and day compared to Windows Vista. In fact, Windows 7 runs faster than Windows XP on the same hardware. Other reasons for recommending Windows 7 include much improved security, home and business networking, performance and user experience. I am actively promoting the migration to Windows 7 for all home users and for most business users. Business users need to ensure that any special applications they use, such as point-of-sale or client relationship management have versions that are Windows 7 compatible. All users should also be aware of what programs and hardware might not be compatible with Windows 7 by downloading and installing the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

Antivirus

I am currently recommending and installing Microsoft Security Essentials and >Avast for free antivirus solutions. I do recommend ClamWinAV as well, but for advanced users only as additional post-install configuration is required for highest security. Past recommendations such as BitDefender and AVG have fallen from grace in my opinion. AVG Free 2011 works well but is quite slow and intrusive relative to others and BitDefender has installation problems on many WindowsXP computers.

As for paid antivirus I continue to recommend ESET NOD32 Antivirus – with 3 years in the top 3 antivirus solutions (AV Comparatives) and 2 Year subscriptions as low as $65.00+tax and significant discounts for multiple computer licenses, ESET is hard to beat. It runs quickly on old and new computers alike – unlike the more commonly used programs such as F-Secure, McAfee and Norton which tend to only work quickly on new computers.

If you are considering changing antivirus programs, please remember to uninstall your current antivirus first, before installing the new one!

Office Productivity

I wholeheartedly recommend OpenOffice 3.3 for those who need to be able to open, edit, and create Microsoft Office format documents but don't want to spend the $150-$500 for the latest version of Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is a great product and has a very familiar user interface, similar to Office 2003.

I also want to take this opportunity to address a common misperception about Microsoft Office. Many people incorrectly assume that Microsoft Windows comes with Microsoft Office. This is absolutely false. These are two separate programs and unless you've paid extra when buying your new computer to have MS Office licensed and installed on your new computer, don'texpect that it will be there for more than a 30-90 day trial version. Again, I stress Microsoft Windows is NOT the same as Microsoft Office.

One big change I'm now recommending to clients is abandoning Adobe Reader in favour of FoxIt Reader. FoxIt is smaller, faster and more lightweight than Adobe Reader, without the constant updates, and has less security holes in it. If you decide to switch over to FoxIt Reader, one thing to watch out for is that during the installation, when you are presented with an option to install the Ask Toolbar, be sure to click "Decline" so that an unneeded Toolbar does not get installed.

Browser

By now you've been inundated with ads, pop-ups and programs trying to get you to install Google Chrome browse. I have to say I finally made the leap last week and now use Google Chrome as my primary browser. It is lightning fast, takes advantages of unique page caching features and of course works great with other Google services such as Blogger, Gmail, Google Docs, Analytics, and AdSense to name a few.

One disclaimer is that some websites will not work in Chrome meaning you should still have a backup browser available for these few sites. The main site that keeps me going back to Firefox is LogMeIn.com. Currently, LogMeIn remote access does not work in Google Chrome.

Backup

I really love the backup program called Allway Sync for local file backups. It is a super powerful and flexible program that can backup sets of files to an external hard drive or network share manually, on a regular schedule, or on specific cues (like auto-start backup if nobody is at the computer for 10 minutes). I highly recommend this program and it is well worth the $20USD for the Pro version if you find the freeware version too limiting.

I'm also keeping my eye on a new backup service from LogMeIn, aptly named "LogMeIn Backup". I will be testing this out over the next month or two. The program essentially allows you to remotely backup computers to your local computer/network. This is really handy for people with a home and office computer in two different locations that need to be backed up. You can remotely back up the computers to one another over the internet. Sounds really slick!