Tag: Tip of the Week

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Tip of the Week

Tip of the Week: Using Templates in Evernote

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The note-taking application Evernote is a favorite of many users, as it allows them to keep extensive notes in an organized fashion. Its true utility goes beyond that of a digital scratch pad, however, as it has additional features that offer much more. For this week’s tip, we’ll review one particularly useful feature: templates.

What Are Templates?
Evernote’s templates are handy, pre-built structures for notes that provide users with a simpler means of organizing specific types of information. Instead of taking time struggling with your formatting each time you start a new note, you can apply one of the templates that Evernote offers on their website. Those with a subscription to Evernote Plus, Premium, or Business can even use formatting they’ve created in past notes to generate their own templates for repeated use.

Applying Templates in Evernote
Once you’ve acquired a few templates, either from the Evernote website’s collection or from a past note, applying one of your choosing is relatively simple.

  • In Evernote, start a new note.
  • In the body of the note, click Templates to view the ones you have saved.
  • From there, you can search for any templates you have, delete ones you no longer want or need, edit their names, and of course, apply them to notes.
  • If you want to edit a template, follow the same process, and once you’ve made the changes that you want, save it as a new template. Note: only those with Plus, Premium, or Business accounts are able to do this.
  • Plus, Premium, and Business users are also able to create their own templates this way.

So, what do you think? Is this a welcome change to Evernote? What other improvements would you like to see them make down the line? Let us know in the comments!

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Best Practices

Tip of the Week: 5 Windows Tricks

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The Windows 10 operating system is the most common operating system for business use, which is what makes it surprising that so few know how to adjust its appearance to suit their preferences. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over a few ways to adjust what you’re seeing and/or looking at for maximum productivity.

Quicker Settings
Your settings are your greatest tool to control your Windows 10 preferences. If you need to change a setting on the fly, you can pull up the menu by pressing CTRL + I or Windows Key + I.

Zoom In/Out
Whether it’s a graphic you want a closer look at or text that’s just a smidge too small (or the opposite cases) the ability to zoom in or out on the entire screen can quickly become a handy trick to know. You have options here: you can either press CTRL + (+) or CTRL + (-) to zoom in or out, or press CTRL + Scroll Wheel to accomplish the same. Pressing CTRL + 0 will reset the screen to normal.

Changing Active Applications
If you’ve really got a good groove flowing as you work, pausing to switch windows with your mouse can really trip you up. With some practice, you can use a keyboard shortcut instead, eliminating this inconvenience. Holding Alt as you press Tab will bring up smaller versions of your active windows, and using the directional keys (while still holding Alt) will allow you to select a different one to work in.

Switching Monitors
Workplaces are seeing more and more multi-monitor setups in use. A shortcut makes it easy to move application windows around and across screens. To move a window to the other monitor, press Windows Key + Shift + Left/Right. Whether you choose left or right depends on which way you want your window to move.

You can use a simpler version of this shortcut to dock an application or browser window to the side of its current monitor, too. All you press for this one is Windows Key + Left/Right.

Shortcuts like these can turn you into a Windows power user in no time at all, with a little practice. Do you have a shortcut that you use frequently enough to make it second nature? Share it with us in the comments!

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Casserly Consulting Blog

Tip of the Week: 5 Tricks to Using Windows

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There’s a lot more to the Windows operating system than first meets the eye, especially where handy shortcuts are concerned. Today, we’ll cover five of the shortcuts baked into Windows that may be beneficial to your productivity.

Rename File
Every so often, you will discover that the name of a document isn’t entirely accurate anymore. Naturally, this file name should be changed to accurately reflect its contents. While you could right-click and select ‘rename’ for each one you have to change, it is much faster to simply select the file (or files) that needs a name change, and press F2. If you change the name of multiple files to the same thing, it will even automatically add the number to the end to differentiate them.

Active Window Screenshot
Screenshots can be very useful, but they can also be a pain to capture. Fortunately, there’s a way to easily take a screenshot of just the active window. By pressing Alt + Print Screen, the active window will be captured cleanly.

Problem Steps Recorder
Every so often, you may need to record your steps exactly, whether you’re replicating an issue for IT to check out or outlining a procedure for training purposes. Windows offers the Problem Steps Recorder, which is an easy-to-use action recording program that outlines and illustrates each step you take while the program is observing you. It then generates a step-by-step report to be reviewed. Creating one is especially simple – the hardest part is typing “psr” into the Windows search bar to pull up the program.

Easy Open Applications
The taskbar is extremely useful for storing your most-used programs and files for easy access. Windows has incorporated a shortcut that makes accessing them even easier. First, figure out which number your desired application is in sequence, then press the Windows key + the sequence number to open that application. This also works to maximize and minimize these windows.

Minimize/Maximize
Another way to quickly minimize and maximize your open windows is a little silly, but effective. If you want to minimize all but one of your windows, simply click and hold the window and shake it. All the rest will minimize. The same action will also reverse this, maximizing all of your windows again.

What other neat Windows tricks and shortcuts do you know about? Share them in the comments!

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Casserly Consulting Blog

Tip of the Week: Avoiding Scams

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Uh oh. One of your employees sat down at their workstation and was presented with a pop-up telling them that Microsoft has detected a fatal issue with their workstation, and if they don’t let someone remote in to fix it, all of their data will be lost. This could be a serious problem… especially if your employee falls for this scam and lets in a threat.

Tech support scams are not an uncommon thing, blending social engineering and phishing together to deliver the desired result to a scammer. For our tip, we’ll discuss how to identify and avoid these scams and deprive a scammer of that result.

A Global Problem
Make no mistake, these scams are an issue all around the world. While the impact is felt the greatest in the United States, China, and India, scammers clearly don’t discriminate by region.

However, there’s another layer to the issue of tech support scams.

There is an intense level of competition in India for employment opportunities, especially among the generation who should now be entering the workforce. For some reference as to how intense this competition is, 2016 saw a state-owned bank receive over one and a half million applications for just 1,500 open positions. This makes it not uncommon for many job applicants to be grossly overqualified for the position they are seeking, recipients of a master’s degree in business administration often applying to be a street sweeper. Naturally, this provides ample motivation for the populace to take any job that presents itself – even if it is at the expense of another.

Many call centers in India will take full, unabashed advantage of this, hiring young job-seekers through a convoluted and secretive process – sometimes not even informing the applicant who they are actually working for. This process can also cost the applicant a not-insignificant sum, as they are often charged for these interviews and trainings. Once the training is complete, an applicant leaves with a start date.

However, these jobs are often not what is expected. Instead of working in customer service, these youths are tasked with initiating a scam. They will call a target, deliver their “pitch,” and transfer the primed caller to a senior scammer who seals the deal. However, despite abysmal pay for being involved in these scams and the emotional burden placed on them by interacting with their often-helpless and terrified targets, many of these scammers find that scams are, again, one of the few effective ways to make money. As a result, many of these young scammers – effectively exploited themselves – end up embracing their role, working to get as big a piece of the pie as possible.

Thwarting These Attempts
Of course, while those on the other end of the line may not be in a great position themselves, you want to make sure that their efforts to scam you are ultimately wasted. To accomplish this outcome, it is important to remember a few key warning signs.

  • Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You – The first thing to remember is that, if a Microsoft representative suddenly calls you without warning, they probably aren’t actually with Microsoft. You should even take your caller ID with a grain of salt, as that can be spoofed to look official enough to trust.
  • Weak Link in the Chain – Links are another favorite weapon of scammers, as they can be shared in an email to direct a user to a website filled with fake warning pop-ups. Avoid clicking on these links, and if you are presented with an alert screen, restart your computer. Scammers will also work to ensure that they reach the top results of search engines through sponsored ads to attract those legitimately looking for help. These links should be avoided as well. Google has made serious efforts to not allow scammers to run Remote IT Support ads, but it hasn’t stopped everything yet.
  • Remain in Control – Unless you are absolutely sure that a third party is trustworthy, never give up control of your computer. Otherwise, you could hand precious data over to a scammer or otherwise land yourself in hot water.

The Better Method
Of course, if you enlist the services of COMPANYNAME, a fair amount of these points become moot, as you will have access to an experienced team of trustworthy IT professionals who have your business’ interests at heart. For more information, give us a call at PHONENUMBER.

Have you ever encountered a scam like this before? Tell us about it in the comments!

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Casserly Consulting Blog

Tip of the Week: Cloud Software for File Sharing

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Businesses have a lot to gain by personal file storage and sharing, but then again, so does the individual user. After all, even the most ambitious business owner has a personal life and people to share information with. How can you share files with people without leaving them vulnerable to data theft and worse? Here are some options that you can use for your personal file sharing solution.

 While there are a lot of products on the market for this purpose, some of the best are those that can also be utilized for business purposes. Most of these file sharing services take advantage of the cloud so they can be used more readily for collaboration or sharing. Here are some of the most popular storage systems at a consumer level.

Google Drive
Google Drive is an extremely helpful tool that can be used by both businesses and personal users alike. It makes it very easy to share files and collaborate in a cloud-based interface. You can share documents, spreadsheets, images, videos, and just about any other file you want to share with other people. You can control permissions for these files as well, controlling who can do what with it. This includes sharing and editing, among other things.

As far as pricing goes, the average user with a Google account can take advantage of Google Drive free of charge, with the option for increasing storage space for a modest fee.

Microsoft OneDrive
Just like Google Drive, Microsoft’s flagship cloud storage system OneDrive is a great solution that integrates Microsoft office applications with their OneDrive cloud storage. The neat thing about Microsoft OneDrive is that it can sync with your Microsoft Office to always update files that you might have stored locally on the device you’re accessing it from. Just like Drive, OneDrive can be an excellent tool for both a business and individual user, with many different plans available for both power users and casual users alike.

Ultimately, the choice is yours on how to proceed with a cloud service for your personal needs. Let us know which one you decide on in the comments below.

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Casserly Consulting Blog

Tip of the Week: Why You Shouldn’t Just Kill Power to Windows

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There’s a big difference between turning off any other appliance, like a stereo or a television, and turning off a computer. A computer takes much more time to shut down than your average device, but why is this the case? Is there a way to speed up this process? This tip will explain these processes and provide some ideas for how you can make this process much faster.

Why Shutdown is So Slow
Let’s take a look at this process as a whole. As a computer is running, there are many components that are doing different jobs. When a computer (or any computing device, like a phone or game console) is shut down, it needs to follow a procedure to make sure data doesn’t get lost. A full shutdown will aim to minimize damage to internal components, empty the RAM, wipe the virtual memory on the hard drive, remove all cached data, close all open applications, and turn off the operating system.

If your computer shuts down without going through this entire process, it could cause file corruption or other damage to its contents that could create issues.

Steps to a Proper Shutdown
It’s important to remember that even though there are a lot of different stages to the shutdown process, but it should go pretty quickly.

The first step in this process is that any applications that are opened are checked to make sure that the data has been saved. If not, the process is interrupted to inform the user. The computer then initiates a sequence that shuts down all services and programs, and it has to confirm that they have indeed been closed before eliminating any unneeded program data. A log is made of anything strange happening during the process, so the user can consult it later. All users are logged out of the system and the computer shuts down on an operating system level. Once this happens, any updates are installed, and the machine is turned off completely.

Speed Up Your Shutdown (and Startup) Times
There are ways your business can improve shutdown speed, but they are somewhat complex and difficult to do on your own with limited IT experience. This is why we recommend working with a provider like COMPANYNAME to make the process easier and more efficient for your organization. We can help your organization make sure that the shutdown process is as streamlined as possible. The same goes for your computer boot times. If you or someone on your staff has a laptop that seems to take forever to ‘wake up,’ there are steps we can take to investigate why and resolve it.

We recommend that your computers get restarted regularly (based on their performance) so as to help the computer keep itself in top working order. To learn more, reach out to us at PHONENUMBER.

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Casserly Consulting Blog

Tip of the Week: Excel Features for the Power User

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As useful as a spreadsheet can be to convey information, they can be a little drab and disengaging if the full capabilities of Microsoft Excel aren’t understood and leveraged. For today’s tip, we’ll go over a few little-known and underutilized features that can help you create spreadsheets with both more style, and more utility.

Visible Zeros
There is a fair chance that, at some point, you will need to input data into Excel that begins with zeroes, whether you’re documenting serial numbers or what have you. The trouble is, Excel has a habit of hiding these zeros, so 0056907 would display as 56907. This unfortunately renders the data inaccurate. However, an easy fix to this is to just add a quotation mark in front of the number. This prevents the zeros from being omitted, so instead of resulting in 56907, you would keep your original “0056907.

Adding a Drop-Down List
Adding a drop-down list to a spreadsheet is a simple, yet effective way to limit the input a particular cell will accept. The first thing you have to do is select the cell that needs to have drop-down capabilities, and then click Validate in the Data tab in the header menu. On the Settings page of the window that pops up, there will be a menu labelled Allow. From that menu, select List and highlight the cells that make up the options you want in your drop-down, and finally, click OK.

Accessing Tools on the Developer Tab
Depending on your needs, you may require some more advanced capabilities in your spreadsheet, like creating option buttons, creating macros, and other features. These can all be found in the Developer tab, which is hidden by default. In order to access it, you will first have to access the Excel menu at the top of your screen and select Preferences. Once you’re provided with the Preferences menu, select Ribbon & Toolbar. You will then see a list of the various options that you can add or remove from your Tabs. Selecting Developer will give you access to the tools that tab contains.

Shading Every Other Row
If spreadsheets have any faults, the eye can easily wander when one is looking at them. Adding shading to the formatting, more specifically, to break up individual rows can be very helpful to someone trying to read the information the spreadsheet has to share. To do this, you will need to highlight the area where you want to display the effect or use the Select All shortcut (Ctrl + A) to apply the effect to the entire sheet. In the Home tab, click into Conditional Formatting and select New Rule from the drop-down menu. You will then have a Style drop-down menu to select from, from which you should pick Classic, after which you should select Use a formula to determine which cells to format. Enter the formula =MOD(ROW(),2) and pick your desired color, and your spreadsheet should be striped quite nicely.

Do you know any other tricks to improve the use of Microsoft Excel? Share them in the comments!

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Casserly Consulting Blog

Tip of the Week: Your Guide to Using Multiple Displays

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Depending on the task you’re trying to work on, it can sometimes seem like there just isn’t enough space on your computer monitor. One of the best solutions is to add another monitor. However, this sometimes requires more that just plugging another display into your system. For this week’s tip, we’ll review the steps to connecting multiple displays to your workstation.

Preparation
Connecting multiple monitors is a process, so before you begin, you should make sure you have all your ducks in a row. First, you need to make sure that your computer is capable of supporting multiple monitors in the first place.

To do so, you need to make sure you have sufficient graphics ports to connect these multiple monitors to. Look at the back of your computer and check for graphics ports, or ones labeled DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, or VGA. Depending on what you see, your computer may or may not have a discrete graphics card, which dictates whether or not you can most likely use more than two monitors. If you only have a motherboard, two displays are generally your cap, while three or more – in addition to the first two – suggest that you have the separate graphics card.

However, even this doesn’t always mean that you can use more than two displays. Checking for the make and model of your graphics card and running it through a quick Google search with the amount of monitors you’d want to use should tell you if your card can support them.

If not, there is always the possibility of adding an additional graphics card, as long as you have the real estate and a sufficient power supply in your computer to support it. If you do, you will want to be sure that you use the same brand of card as your system currently uses. This will improve your performance and cause much less trouble for you in the long run. In addition to this, you will also need to be sure that you have the appropriate connector cables, and that they will connect properly between your tower and your display.

From there, all you have to do is obtain the additional monitors you want to use, which will be dictated by your budget, your needs and intended use, and your available real estate.

Setup and Configuration
Unfortunately, you still aren’t quite ready to dive back in – you need to tell your computer itself to play nice with all these monitors, too. Fortunately, the Windows operating system makes this fairly simple.

Press Windows + P to pull up a simple menu of your display modes. These modes are as follows:

  • PC screen only – Your primary monitor will be the only one utilized.
  • Duplicate – All monitors will show the same desktop.
  • Extend – The monitors work collaboratively to provide a single, expanded desktop.
  • Second screen only – Your secondary monitor will be the only one utilized.

Generally speaking, you will most likely want to utilize the ‘Extend’ setting.

Once you have done all this, you will want to right-click anywhere on your desktop to pull up your Display settings. Using the diagram provided, mimic the way your screens are set up, each numbered box representing one of them. Clicking Identify will have the screens identify themselves by number. You can also adjust whether your taskbar is displayed on all screens and change up your desktop customization for each.

It doesn’t take much to help boost your productivity at work, which means even the smallest changes can make a big difference. How many monitors do you prefer to use? Tell us in the comments!

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Casserly Consulting Blog

Tip of the Week: How to Improve Your Invoicing Processes

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One of the most important considerations in any business is to ensure that payments are properly received and processed. Otherwise, you may as well not be in business at all. To help expedite this, we’re dedicating this week’s tip to creating a better, more effective invoice. Let’s get into it.

How to Create Your Invoice
First, you need to have some way to actually construct the invoice document itself. For this, you have some options. If you use Microsoft Office products, both Excel and Word have templates you can use to put it together, and G Suite users can leverage any number of integrations to do the same. Alternatively, there are many software titles out there that offer more specific functions based on need and preference.

Once you have selected your software, you can start to put your invoice together. You will want to be sure that your invoice includes the following information:

  • Description – You want to be crystal clear on your invoices about what you are billing for, especially if part of it refers to time spent rendering a service. This will allow you to properly bill your clients while allowing them to understand exactly what they are being billed for, cutting back on how often your invoices are contested. Overall, every invoice should include the order number it refers to, the total amount owed, how the invoice can be paid, and when payment is due.
  • Discount Details – If you are offering any discounts, you will also want to make sure these are clearly annotated on your invoices as well – especially for those who are first signing on to your services. Otherwise, these discounts may confuse your clients and instill a false expectation for the future – creating surprise and frustration when the discounts are gone later.
  • Schedules and Policies – Just as you were held to a schedule to deliver your service, your client needs to be held to a schedule to pay for it. Consistency will also help your client prepare their payments on time. On a related note, your invoice should thoroughly explain your company policies on discounts, late payments and associated fines, and due dates to make your expectations of the client very clear.

Of course, this isn’t everything that can, or should, go on your invoices. However, these aspects are crucial enough to be mentioned and detailed separately. You should also consider other elements to include on your invoice, making use of what would otherwise be blank space. You may consider adding a more personalized touch and suggesting the next steps that a client should take, based on the services you are billing them for.

Furthermore, add some more of a personal touch by including some kind of thank-you message on the invoice. Write up a brief piece thanking your client for their business and have it printed on the invoice. Not only is this a visible way to earnestly say thank you, the appreciation you show may help to expedite payments and encourage repeat business.

When and How to Distribute Your Invoice
If you want to receive your payments on time, how you send your invoices is just as important as how they look. First and foremost, they need to be sent much sooner than later.

If yours is like many businesses, you may have found that your invoices go unpaid for long stretches of time. Estimates put the total of unpaid invoices to small businesses at well over $800 billion, and that was back in January of this year. This is why it is crucial that your invoices are distributed efficiently – it may be a long time before you get them back.

This is another reason that technology solutions are useful tools to assist you in managing your invoices digitally. Most invoicing software will likely enable you to track the status of the invoices you’ve sent.

If you want more assistance in managing your invoices, reach out to COMPANYNAME. We’d be happy to assist you, all you have to do is call PHONENUMBER. In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for more useful technology tips and advice!

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Casserly Consulting Blog

Tip of the Week: Changing a PDF in Microsoft Word

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Did you know that Microsoft Word can actually edit PDF files? Well… the most recent version of it can, anyway. Since Adobe Acrobat can be a considerable investment for each and every one of your employees, you can instead turn to the tried and true Microsoft Word for this purpose. We’ll show you how you can do this (as long as you have the most recent version of MS Word).

Open the PDF
First, you’ll need to open the PDF. To do this, open up Microsoft Word and select Open Other Documents from the left-hand menu.

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This brings up the Open menu. Next, you want to click on Browse.

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Another message will appear telling you that Word will convert the PDF to an editable Word document. If this sounds fine, click on OK.

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Your PDF should open up in Word now, but you might notice that there is still a yellow bar at the top of the screen that says PROTECTED VIEW. This is meant to secure your software from opening anything dangerous. If you can trust the document, click the Enable Editing button.

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Once you press the button, another notification will show you that Word will convert the PDF to an editable Word document. To close this message, just click on the checkboxor click OK.

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You can now edit your PDF.

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Once you’re done, you can save the file back to a PDF format. To do this, select File > Save As and set the type to PDF from the dropdown menu under the assigned file name. You will have to rename the document slightly to save it to a file folder.

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Once you’re done, your edited PDF will open in Microsoft Edge, or whatever your default PDF viewer happens to be.

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What are some other cool features of Microsoft Word that you would like us to cover? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to our blog.