Customer Satisfaction Winner – 4Q2011

We want to do a great job for our customers, so we send out a survey as each service ticket is closed, asking for feedback. We don’t always get them back, and we understand – we’re all busy. But, because we really need this information (we use your feedback to improve our processes, give feedback to employees, and part of our staff’s compensation is based on it) we have a quarterly drawing. Every time you fill out a survey your name is entered in the drawing, so your odds improve as you give us more feedback.

This quarter’s winner is Donna Aguas of the Austin-Weston Center for Cosmetic Surgery. Austin-Weston is a BEI managed services client. If you have any questions or comments about the surveys, contact Kurt Duesterdick at 703-528-8300 x101 or kurt@beinetworks.com.

Healthcare IT Update January 2012: iPads Have Much Potential, But Significant Challenges Remain

We also publish a monthly newsletter for the healthcare market and thought this article on iPads might be of general interest. We have many clients looking to use iPads in their corporate environments, and the warnings here are pretty much the same as they are for healthcare – make sure that the applications you are using have been adapted for iPads, otherwise you may end up unhappy with the results.

Read the article about iPads in Healthcare.

Viruses and Malware are out to GET YOU!

We are seeing an incredible number of malware issues these days and wanted to pass along some tips to AVOID getting infected. All of our clients are running business-grade virus protection, but keep in mind that if you click on the wrong link you are essentially inviting a thief (virus/spyware) into your home (computer) and bypassing your virus/spyware protection.

• Don’t open emails if you don’t recognize the sender. If it looks like an odd email from a particular sender that you do know, don’t open it. For example, if you get an email from someone you normally only correspond with for business reasons that says “check out these photos”, don’t open it. You can call or email that person and ask them if they really sent something to you.
• NEVER click on a link that looks suspicious or is inside a suspicious email. This includes emails or links with awkward phrasing or spelling errors or with outlandish promises.
• Know the brand and product name of the virus protection you are using, so that you’ll recognize legitimate virus warning messages. Most BEI clients use TrendMicro or Symantec antivirus. (Also, there is no such thing as “Windows 7 Antimalware”)
• “Evil” virus/spyware pop-us tend to be very dramatic. Here are some things to watch for:
  • “Danger! Warning! Immediately!” – the people who write the real virus notifications use pretty boring language, so this kind of warning is a tip-off that something is up.
  • Lots of exclamation points or dramatic images.
• The pop-up below is an example of an attempt to pass along a virus/malware. If you get something like this don’t click on ANY part of the pop-up – often the entire image (including the “close” button) will start the download of malware to your machine.

 

 

Office 365 – additions coming for Kiosk offerings

We’re seeing lots of interest in Office 365, Microsoft’s suite of online services that includes secure, anywhere access to email and calendars, Office Web Apps, web conferencing, and file sharing. The Kiosk plans are designed for staff who are not sitting at a desk all day – they may be on a factory floor, at client offices, in a retail environment or anywhere that they just tend to be a “lighter” user of the online applications.

We’ve heard a rumor (not official but we think quite reliable) that later this spring Microsoft will add the following features to the Kiosk plans:

• add ActiveSync support for mobile devices
• expand the mailbox size to 1 GB (from 500 MB previously)
• offer Exchange Online Archiving (important to many financial organizations)

And all this for just $2/person/month (Exchange Online Kiosk) or $4/person/month (Exchange Online and SharePoint Online Kiosk.) For more details on Microsoft’s Office 365 Kiosk Offerings click here and select “Kiosk Worker Plans.”

Outlook 2010: How to set up a GREAT meeting

We all love a well-run meeting, where attendees have the background information they need, all organized ahead of time. Outlook can help! Use your meeting invitation to include documents, contact information, photos of attendees, relevant links and more. This is even more important when you are running an online meeting and can’t hand out paper. You can insert (or drag/drop or paste) almost anything into a meeting appointment that you can insert into a Word document. See the example below.

WORD: Delete ALL Review Comments, then inspect before sending

To delete all review comments in a WORD 2010 document (assumes you’ve been through them and taken care of any suggestions and now want to just make sure you’ve deleted all of them):

Select Review > Delete > Delete All Comments in Document

If you would like to go one step further, with WORD 2010 you can “Inspect” your document. This checks for more than comments (revisions, personal information, hidden fields and more) and is a nice step if you are sending documents outside your company.

To inspect your document, go to File > Info > Check for Issues > Inspect Document as shown below.

You will then see a list of items that can be inspected.

Select “Inspect” and you will see something similar to the report below:

Be aware that some of these changes cannot be undone.

BEI’s 25th Anniversary!

Hard to believe – this is our 25th year serving the Metro DC business community. We’re not sure yet what this celebration will entail, but plans are in the works. This is also the 30th anniversary for the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce and we will be participating in that celebration also.

A successful “Movember”

Thanks to all who supported “Movember” – supporting a ’stache and helping to change the face of men’s health. During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces, in the US and around the world. With their Mo’s, these men raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men. The Sarsaparilla Staches, captained by BEI Network Engineer Joe Mettler, raised over $2,000!

Excel: Relative & Absolute References – the most important concept in Excel!)

If you’ve been creating spreadsheets this is old news. But for people who are new to the world of Excel, or maybe only use spreadsheets that others create, this can be really important.

A reference identifies a cell or a range of cells. For example, in the spreadsheet shown below, B2 = 54, and C1:C3 = 23,75 and 19.

Relative References identify cell(s) based on their position relative to the cell that contains the formula. So, if you move or copy the formula then the Relative Reference changes. In the example below note we are adding up all the Pecan Pies sold as part of a school fundraiser in Cell D5.

 

If we copy this formula and paste it into Cell C5 so that we can add up all the Pumpkin Pies, note the changes below:

Cell C5 now refers to C1+C2+C3. The formula has adjusted “one cell to the left” because that is what happened to the formula.

This is very powerful and can be used to great advantage when creating spreadsheets.

Absolute References identify cell(s) in a specific location that will not change when a formula is moved or copied. Suppose we wanted to always order an additional 20% over and above the actual orders, just to allow for last minute shoppers. We add a row called “Adjusted Total” and we’ll enter the new total there. So we multiply D5 (original total) by B9, because we’ve decided to order 120% of what we actually have orders for. 

This is great, but when we copy this to C6 to get the adjusted total for Pumpkin Pie, look what happens:

When we copied the formula we ended up multiplying D5 by A9, which is NOT what we wanted to do. We wanted to adjust the number of pies, but not the 120%. So, instead we use what is called an Absolute Reference as shown below:

By using the “$” in front of the reference for the adjustment factor, that cell reference will not change when it is copied – it will always refer to Cell B9.

Note: You can also make only the row or only the column relative . For example, $B9 would change the row when it is copied but not the column.

Outlook: Find all messages sent by the same person

Right-click a message from the sender that you have in mind and then on the shortcut menu, point to Find Related, then Messages from Sender.

 

The Advanced Find dialog box displays a list of all messages from that person. You can further refine the search using the options in the dialog box.