Tonido–Cloud based Storage/Share/Sync

Tonido has several products that allow you access your files both locally and remotely with different types of devices. You have a choice of either Tonido Cloud (cloud based storage) or Tonido Desktop which provides access to your computer stored documents.

Tonido Desktop might be good for:

• Home users who need anytime access to files and media
• Professionals (Legal, Real Estate, Designers, Accountants) who need to share files privately and securely with their clients
• Mini Businesses who need a file sharing solution

This may work for you if you upgrade to the Pro version to tie in your music and pictures with friends and family using a myriad of devices.

Tonido Cloud provides access to your storage system from anywhere. You can use local storage, Amazon S3, Openstack or any object based storage. Tonido is targeting Enterprises, Universities and Schools, ISPs & Telecom Companies, System Integrators, IT Consulting Companies and Hosting Providers with this service. Pricing starts at $499 per year for up to 25 users. Since you are providing the storage there is no other cost. If you want to setup a controlled cloud accessible service like Dropbox, this could be your best solution. It is a little steep unless you need a lot of storage or at least 25 users, but this could be a great way to place FTP services, synchronization services, and file sharing under one product with simple access control.

Western Digital making a sleeker My Passport

Western Digital has unveiled a sleek new My Passport Edge portable drive. It is ultra thin and works with bot Windows and Mac computers. I don’t know if you want to call a hard drive Sexy but if you did the term would probably fit this new device.

There are minor differences between the Mac and Windows versions. They are both USB 3.0 compatible and are bus powered. In other words, plug you USB cable in and you are powered up. Both of them are about as thin as a traditional internal laptop hard drive (9.5 millimeters). This is because on the inside they use the new ultra slim type of internal hard drive that's just 7mm thick.

WD says the My Passport Edge for Mac is designed specifically to complement Apple's portable computers (MacBook Pro and MacBook Air), and has an all-aluminum exterior that's not just good-looking but also protects the drive against drops and bumps. The drive is preformatted in HFS+ and has support for Apple's Time Machine right out of the box.

The Windows version of the My Passport Edge, according to WD, has a premium-finish plastic cover and includes WD SmartWare software that's capable of continuous and automatic backup. It's preformatted in NTFS. Either version of the new drive can work with either Windows or Mac OS, however, once formatted in the appropriate file system.

The new 500GB-capacity My Passport Edge is available now and costs $110 and $120 for the Windows and Mac versions, respectively. Both versions of the new drive come with a three-year warranty.

Another interesting Storage Choice–Pogoplug and Amazon Glacier

Press Release:

POGOPLUG INTRODUCES NEW CLOUD STORAGE SERVICE USING AMAZON GLACIER

New Service Combines Safe, Affordable Cloud Backup with Instant Access and Sharing

San Francisco, CA, September 6, 2012 - Pogoplug today announced its new cloud storage service for families and small businesses. The service seamlessly integrates Amazon's Glacier storage with Pogoplug-enabled storage in the home or office. The combination provides the most affordable and safest multi-user cloud backup, with instant access and sharing from anywhere on the Internet.

"Amazon is revolutionizing cloud storage with Glacier. Our new offering provides the missing link by eliminating the three to five hour retrieval time intrinsic to Glacier - making all content instantly accessible," said Daniel Putterman, CEO of Pogoplug. "By keeping data synchronized between Amazon Glacier and a Pogoplug device in the home or office, we are offering unprecedented pricing for safe, fast cloud storage."

Pogoplug's new Family and Team services are available immediately. Family plans start at $29/year for unlimited private cloud storage at home, paired with 100GB of offsite cloud storage. The $99/year Family plan offers 1TB of cloud storage. As an introductory promotion, all Family plans include a free Pogoplug storage device.

Pogoplug Team plans enable businesses to leverage existing servers or computers for backup, private cloud storage and team collaboration. Each Pogoplug Team plan includes a fully customizable user interface, and up to 5 terabytes of offsite cloud storage. Team plans start at $199/year for five users.

ABOUT POGOPLUG
Pogoplug's proprietary hybrid cloud technologies meld offsite archival storage with Pogoplug-enabled storage in the home or office. The combination provides the most affordable and safest multi-user cloud backup, with instant access and sharing from anywhere on the Internet.

Pogoplug is led by seasoned entrepreneurs from the digital media and security space and is backed by Foundry Group, Softbank and Morgan Stanley. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, with a satellite office in Tel Aviv. For more information, please visit http://www.pogoplug.com.

Have you ordered yours yet?

InFocus IN3900 Interactive Projector Demo

I was doing some research for a customer in a classroom situation and I found this interesting product from InFocus that will make an electronic whiteboard with just a  $149 add-on option.

InFocus IN3900 education demonstration features the IN3914 and IN3916 interactive projectors as used in a classroom.

Special promo pricing on Snagit by TechSmith

Starting 9/1/2012, TechSmith will be running a special promotion on our 25 and 50 user packs of Snagit. Details are included below.
MSRP Costs

Quantity	Commercial	Government	Education
Snagit 25 Pack	$499	$449	$349
Snagit 50 Pack	$949	$849	$549

Valid Dates:
9/1/2012-10/15/2012
Please Note

• These are not stockable
• Maintenance is not being discounted, and should be purchased with the standard part/price
• Please contact your Distributor for setup costs

Windows Server 2012 Editions–Licensing Overview

Cut right from Microsoft’s site:

Licensing Overview

Windows Server 2012 delivers a dramatically simplified licensing experience. Shaped by feedback from customers and partners, the new Windows Server licensing approach will help make choosing the right Windows Server easier while delivering the following benefits.

Simple

It’s easier than ever to determine the right Windows Server edition for you. Choose from just four editions of Windows Server 2012, based on the size of your organization and your requirements for virtualization and cloud computing.

Economical

All editions of Windows Server 2012 deliver excellent economics and ROI for your business. For example, Datacenter edition with unlimited virtualization rights provides the benefits of cloud-level scale with predictable, lower costs. Standard edition now offers all of the same enterprise-class features as Datacenter and is differentiated only by virtualization rights.

Cloud-optimized

Businesses today are rapidly adopting a hybrid approach across private and public cloud computing. Windows Server 2012 offers the right edition for you, no matter where you are on your path to the cloud; Datacenter edition for highly virtualized cloud environments, Standard edition for lightly virtualized environments progressing toward cloud, or Essentials edition for an ideal cloud-connected first server.

New Microsoft Logo conforming to Metro Style Look

Microsoft is changing its corporate logo for the first time in 25 years. Microsoft is making many changes to incorporate the new Windows 9 Style in all of its product logos.

For the first time in its history, Microsoft has a graphical symbol as part of its logo. Four colored squares sit to the left of the company name written in its Segoe typeface. Segoe is the font family of choice for Metro applications.

The new logo is extremely simple. The old logo had some nuance, with the way the 's' takes a notch out of the 'o'. This is now gone, though the connection between the 'f' and 't' is retained.

The design of the newest logo, or specifically its symbol part, is more than a little surprising. Earlier in the year, Microsoft revealed a new Windows logo. Office 2013 also has a new logo. Both of these logos share some design cues, in particular, the use of a perspective effect on their symbols.

                 

The difference in styles between the Windows 8 and Office logos and the new Corporate logos jumps right out at me. Though both are rather simplistic the Corporate logo has more color and doesn’t position the graphic in same show of depth that the other two logos do. Also strange is the use of colors. The company says that the squares are intended to express the company's diverse portfolio of products. The new logo is already being used on the microsoft.com site and three of the company's stores. It will be rolled out more widely over the coming months.

Bitcoin-funded debit/credit cards are on their way, expect them in 6-8 weeks

Honestly, I haven’t run into Bitcoin except to clear it off of servers as a form of Malware. According to TweakTown, Charlie Shrem, BitInstant co-founder revealed in an IRC chat that his company is 6 to 8 weeks away from launching a Bitcoin-funded international debit/credit card. Stating that it will be issued by two unnamed major banks, one international and the other domestic.

The Bitcoin-funded card will act like any normal debit or credit card account, and should be accepted wherever MasterCard is accepted, which is virtually anywhere. The first 1,000 Bitcoin debit/credit cards will be issued for free, but after the first 1,000, the cards will set you back around $10 per card.

Shrem also revealed that each card will sport a QR code on the front that can be scanned to complete transactions that are under $1,000 and a printed address on the rear featuring the user's Bitcoin Address. Future Bitcoin-funded card owners should expect to pay a 1% fee to fund the card, and a $1.50 ATM withdrawal fee.

Amazon launches Glacier archiving service

An interesting choice for a name for this product it takes on a couple of the characteristics of a Glacier. This new Amazon service is meant to provide an inexpensive method for archive storage of your data. Priced at $0.01 per GB / month, you are also charged for both upload and retrieval requests. “Glacier is designed with the expectation that retrievals are infrequent and unusual, and data will be stored for extended periods of time. You can retrieve up to 5% of your average monthly storage (pro-rated daily) for free each month. If you choose to retrieve more than this amount of data in a month, you are charged a retrieval fee starting at $0.01 per gigabyte. Learn more. In addition, there is a pro-rated charge of $0.03 per gigabyte for items deleted prior to 90 days. Learn more.”

There doesn’t seem to be a cost for transferring data into your data store or for the first GB that you transfer out. However, look at the table below for rates for greater than 1GB out bound.

Take a look at the Amazon Glacier FAQs page here.

Pros: Cheap storage for lots of data

Cons: Slow retrieval rates

Don’t consider this service for anything but long term archival storage. I don’t think this is cost effective for home users but for off site archival storage for commercial entities this could be a great solution.

Logitech Washable Keyboard K310

This is a new Logitech K310 keyboard that should be hitting distribution shortly. Priced at $39.99 it is  geared towards being able to be cleaned using soap and water. It is great for use in highly dirty situations. It can handle a light dusting or be soaked in up to 12 inches of water. It has drainage holes in the back for faster drying. From Logitech’s Features Page:

More than tough enough

Laser printing and a UV coating ensures this keyboard can take a washing as well as a pounding. The durable keys, robust tilt legs and increased resistance to surface scratches makes the Washable Keyboard one of the toughest on the market.

Functional and good-looking

Comfortable typing is a given, thanks to a familiar layout with F-keys and number pad. And it all comes in a unique, contemporary design that will complement your computer, as well as your work space.

Plug and play simplicity

Thankfully, the Washable Keyboard works right out of the box. There’s no software to install, so you can simply plug it in and start typing. Talk about a clean setup.

Take a shortcut and save time

Gain instant access to popular applications like the Internet, email, volume controls, and more—with 12 hot keys. Hit F1 to go home, F2 to launch your email, F3 to start a search, and F4 to crunch some numbers on the calculator. Want to bring up your media player and play your favorite music? Simply hit F5 to launch, F6 for the previous track, F7 to play or pause the track, and F8 to skip tracks. For volume controls, you can hit F9 to mute, or F10 and F11 to lower or raise the volume (respectively). And when you’re finished using your computer, put your PC to sleep by hitting F12. It’s that easy.

Look at this brief video from Logitech:

Specification Page

Nexus7 Update - Audio Bluetooth Streaming

I just want to make a quick comment on and update that must have happened on my Nexus 7 recently. I decided to try to Bluetooth streaming audio again in my car when wonder of wonders, it worked perfectly.

I no longer have the problem streaming from my audible book collection. What was the issue was that if I paused or stopped the Audible book from playing, when I tried to access it again later it would not connect. In fact, I was denied access to the book until I closed and restarted the Audible application. Now that is no longer in a problem. I'm so glad that finally started working again.

Registration for $15 Windows 8 Upgrade Offer Opens

From Redmond Channel Partner news comes the announcement that the $14.99 Windows 8 upgrade offer became available on Monday.

From Redmond Blog Post:

The upgrade offer provides a discount to buyers of new Windows 7-based PCs who want to upgrade in the future to the Windows 8 Pro edition. The offer applies only to those moving to Windows 8 Pro on x86/x64 machines. Windows RT, the operating system that runs on ARM-based hardware, will only be sold preinstalled on machines; it isn't possible to download it or buy boxed copies.

The offer to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $14.99 is good only for owners of Windows 7 PCs that were purchased between June 2, 2012 and Jan. 31, 2013, according to Microsoft's announcement. An announcement made last month seemed to suggest that the offer was available with Windows XP and Vista machines too, but that's not exactly correct. The main problem is that people can't buy new PCs running those operating systems, and the offer is only extended to new PC buyers. However, the upgrade offer is still available to those people who bought a new Windows 7 PC who then downgraded that OS to Windows XP or Vista. Such downgrades do not affect the upgrade offer, or even the process of upgrading to Windows 8, according to Microsoft's FAQ.

There are some limitations that you need to know about. If you bought retail outlet or boxed copies of Windows 7 that weren’t installed on PCs or if you purchased a refurbished PC with Windows 7 preinstalled you will not qualify because your system is not new. Also, the offer is just for consumers and not businesses. An individual can only take advantage of the offer on five upgrades. Windows 7 Starter Edition also doesn’t qualify.

Redmond goes on to discuss the process:

The offer is a multistep process. The new Windows 7 PC has to be purchased within the dates of the offer. Next, those wanting to upgrade to Windows 8 have to register, and that's now open via this page. Lastly, the upgrade itself is only available when Windows 8 is released as a final product on October 26, so those signing up can't upgrade right away. Finally, the offer has a time-out clause, even for those who signed up -- that is, the Windows 8 download has to take place before Feb. 28, 2013 or the deal is null.

The upgrade happens over an Internet connection by means of a "Windows upgrade assistant" service. It can take "30 to 90 minutes" to download Windows 8, which is a 2 GB file. Of course it's not possible to upgrade a 32-bit Windows 7 PC with a 64-bit edition of Windows 8. Microsoft will provide Windows 8 on installation media for an additional charge, or upgraders can burn their own installation disks on a DVD disk or a USB drive.

If you don’t qualify for the cheap upgrade, you will be able to upgrade after the Windows 8 release for 39.95. Your requirement is to have either XP, Vista or Windows 7 installed on you machine. You will also get the Media Player as part of the package as well.  I’ll post more info on this as it comes available.

How do you use a tablet?

Many people have different use for tablet technology. Whether you are a professional or you are just using the device in a home environment, your perspective on how you are using a tablet will probably be quite different. From my perspective, most of the people that mix their use of tablet between work and home are using in their business lives to check and send email, do research and review documents that they have created on their PC’s. Some take it a step further and use the tablet as a device to remotely access their notebooks and desktop computers or to help them maintain their servers. I usually have a tablet somewhere near me and I use it at home primarily as an entertainment device, a resource to scan email, RSS Feeds, and other documents, reading text books or novels, listen to audio books, and listen/watch podcasts that are mainly computer industry related. Netflix, Hulu, Xfinity and HBOgo are my favorite video applications, Kindle is my favorite ebook reader, Skype for many of personal calls, Audible for my audiobooks, Amazon MP3 and Spotify for music. I am not storing many pictures anymore on these devices but I have access to SmugMug as my gallery on the internet. I don’t use Facebook or Twitter much directly, however, all my blog posts are automatically posted to both of these to help promote my pages. Data access is a very important requirement to any device that I use. It is important to me that no matter what device I pick up that I can get at the data I need to keep working. Dropbox has been a big part of this for me because of its auto-synchronization between devices and access from any device that has internet access. SkyDrive is starting to become my second choice for document storage and for music I use Amazon. SmugMug is my choice for Photos and YouTube is my choice for my video content that I want to share. With my mobile hotspot and of the devices that I have I have access with every WiFi device I own when I have 3G/4G access. I don’t write much other than email replies on any of the tablets. I find myself needing multiple screens and other software tools that help me to capture images that I use in my posts. I find most of the research I want to do is better served for me by a dual monitor environment which I am not going to get with a tablet. So when it comes to the creative side of using a device I find myself going back to a desktop more than to a notebook or tablet unit. But when I hit the road it is the tablet that I always have with me not the notebook to connect to my world. I wonder when the Microsoft Surface Pro finally makes it to t he real world whether I will be able to use that as my primary mobile creation device or not. The keyboard is going to be a make or break part of the equipment. Being able to run Microsoft applications is going to a big thing as well. It will be interesting to see how it fits into my life.

Knomia-an online video platform directed at education

Knomia allows you to create and share lessons as a teacher, view lessons as a student, and as a parent to choose lessons that you think would be good for your students. They have several tools posted for teachers to create content with more coming. Use the iPad app to create lesson plans or link to video that you have produced on iTunes and Vimeo. Currently advertising over 7,000 video lessons available at this time, all published by teachers. They have 3 different accounts that you can sign up for. You may register as a student, teacher or parent. You will be asked to setup using an email and to put in personal information about yourself. As a teacher you can create video in QuickTime, MPEG4 or H.264 formats or point to YouTube or Vimeo posts in your accounts. Use the iTunes lessons creation tool that is a free lesson planning and recording tool for teachers.

It helps you create short video lessons on any subject and publish them on knowmia.com so your students and the public can find them. Knowmia Teach makes it easy to bring in visual aids from multiple sources, organize them in steps (like slides in a presentation) and use your own voice and fingers to bring your lesson to life. You can design each step in the lesson, record illustrations as you draw them, and create sophisticated animation sequences with a simple stroke of a finger. We give you the ability to describe your lesson with details that make it simple for any student who is interested in the subject to find it.
Main features include:

• Build your lesson out of smaller steps (like slides) so it's easy to manage and organize your lesson
• Create each step of your lesson on a separate whiteboard so you can seamlessly introduce new concepts
• Record everything that you do on the whiteboard as well as your voice to create the lesson step-by-step
• Use the shape tool to quickly draw common shapes
• Type text with any font/size directly on the whiteboard
• Import graphics from the iPad's media library and built-in camera - or paste in any image of your own
• Draw freely with multiple pen widths and a highlighter mode
• Use the pointer tool to attract attention to anything on the whiteboard while recording it
• Publish the complete lesson to Knowmia.com with a touch of a button

It is great to start seeing new products coming out that will enhance the teacher’s lesson plans and parents ability to help direct their children’s education.

Lexmark Printer Tip–Prevent Paper Jams

Here are some techniques on how to help prevent paper jams in you Lexmark printers.

While your competitors are parked on the phone with tech support trying to clear a paper jam, you can zoom right past them on the road to success. To avert paper jams before they happen, try these easy tips:

· Fan the paper like you do with playing cards and then align the edges.
Quickly prepare the paper. Watch video »

· Make sure the paper lies flat in the tray.

· Don't remove trays while the printer is printing.

· Don't load trays or feeders while the printer is printing. Load them prior to printing, or wait for a prompt to load them.

· Don't load too much paper. Make sure the stack height does not exceed the indicated maximum height. Best way to load paper. Watch video »

· Make sure the guides in the paper trays and feeders are properly positioned so they are not pressing too tightly against the paper or envelopes.

· Push all trays in firmly after loading paper.

Paper tray recommendations

• Make sure the paper lies flat in the tray.

• Do not remove trays while the printer is printing.

• Do not load trays, the multipurpose feeder, or the envelope feeder while the printer is printing. Load them prior to printing, or wait for a prompt to load them.

• Do not load too much paper. Make sure the stack height does not exceed the indicated maximum height.

• Make sure the guides in the paper trays, multipurpose feeder, or envelope feeder are properly positioned and are not pressing too tightly against the paper or envelopes.

• Push all trays in firmly after loading paper.

Paper recommendations

• Use only recommended paper or specialty media.

• Do not load wrinkled, creased, damp, bent, or curled paper.

• Flex, fan, and straighten paper before loading it.

• Do not use paper that has been cut or trimmed by hand.

• Do not mix paper sizes, weights, or types in the same stack.

• Make sure all sizes and types are set correctly in the printer control panel menus.

• Store paper per the manufacturer's recommendations.

Envelope recommendations

• To reduce wrinkling, use the Envelope Enhance menu in the Paper menu.

• Do not feed envelopes that:

  • Have excessive curl or twist.

  • Have windows, holes, perforations, cutouts, or embossing.

  • Have metal clasps, string ties, or folding bars.

  • Have an interlocking design.

  • Have postage stamps attached.

  • Have any exposed adhesive when the flap is in the sealed or closed position.

  • Have bent corners.

  • Have rough, wrinkled, or laid finishes.

  • Are stuck together or damaged in any way.

Following all these recommendations and still getting paper jams? If you've been getting a lot of mileage out of your Lexmark printer, it may be time for a new maintenance kit or pick rollers. Contact Lexmark to help with printer troubleshooting before taking any more action.

Amazon launches ‘Send to Kindle’ feature for Google Chrome

Amazon has created an extension for Chrome that allows web content to be sent to any device that has the Kindle App installed. It provides a single click process that will send blog posts, stories and other Google Chrome displayed pages to be sent to your favorite e-reader device. Amazon’s Whispersync technology synchronizes between devices so that you can start reading the content on one reader and seamlessly pick up where you left off on another device.

The extension, "Send to Kindle for Google Chrome," allows users to send the entire webpage or just selected text to the device.

To get the extension for yourself, head on over to Amazon's Send To Kindle download page. Confirm the download on the Google Chrome Web store and sign in with your Amazon account. When you click the button, the content is formatted for the Kindle and then sent to your device a few minutes later. Amazon has said FireFox and Safari will get support "soon" but there was no mention of Internet Explorer.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 has finally reached distribution and it seems to a very interesting choice of functions. The tablet is available in both 16GB $499 and 32GB $549 versions. It is using Samsung’s S-Pen stylus for input and is available in WiFi only. It is shipping with Android 4.0 (ICS Ice Cream Sandwich) but Samsung is promising an upgrade to Jellybean (4.1) before the end of the year. It is also shipping with Samsung’s Touchwiz interface that allows for easy multitasking and customizable home screens.

It's powered by a 1.4GHz quad-core and 2GB of RAM. The screen seems a bit low-res coming in at only 1280×800 on a TFT display. The rear camera also seems a bit underwhelming, coming in at a mere 5MP with autofocus and a LED flash. It has a regular size SD slot that supports up to 32GB SD cards. There is a a disappointing US 2.0 connection but it is supporting Bluetooth 4.0.

The software apps that are loaded on the system include: Google Play™ Store, Books, Movies, and Music Preloaded: Contacts, Alarm/Clock, S Planner, Camera, Gallery, Google Talk™, Dropbox, Netflix, Gmail™, YouTube™, Web Browser, My Files, Email, Google Search, Latitude, Video Player, Media Hub, Game Hub, Calculator, Music Player, Smart Remote, Settings, ChatON, Samsung Apps, Polaris Office, S Suggest, Google Maps, Google +, Google + Messenger, Music Hub, Navigation, Places, Video Maker, World Clock, Nook, AllShare Play S Pen Optimized Apps: Crayon Physics, S Note™, Adobe® Photoshop® Touch, Kno™

Audio Support
Music: MP3, AAC/AAC+/EAAC+, WMA, OGG (vorbis), FLAC, AC-3 Sound: AMR-NB/WB, WAV, MID, XMF, iMelody, SP-MIDI, RTTTL/RTX, OTA

Video Support
Video: 1080p Playback Full HD in 1280 x 800 screen @ 30 fps Video Codec: Mpeg4, H.264, H.263, VC-1, Divx, VP8, WMV7/8, Sorenson Spark Format: 3gp(mp4), wmv(asf), avi(divx), mkv, flv, webm

Image Support
GIF, AGIF, JPEG, PNG, WBMP, WEBP

Supported Document Types
Word File: .doc .docx .txt .hwp .rtf Excel File: .xls .xlsx .csv PowerPoint: .ppt .pptx .pps PDF: .pdf

Messaging Options
Email (POP3/IMAP/SMTP/SSL/TLS); Exhange ActiveSync Email

Great Windows 8 Review

Windows 8 Review: Incredibly Innovative, Incredibly Important, Not Quite Incredible

Kyle Wagner of Gizmodo wrote a great article providing an interesting look at the pros and cons of Windows 8. While in  most enterprise environments I thing we will see a slow adoption, in the home and mobile environment it will be interesting to see what the adoption rate will be. There is going to be a learning curve no matter what but even with a slow adoption I think we will see come together. Always optimistic I guess.

Have you signed up for Outlook.com account yet?

Microsoft is making another attempt to draw users into their Cloud Solutions by integrating their new email account with their other online services. Of course this is an Ad-based service but the ads are quite unobtrusive as you can see on the image to the right. As you work around the screen you will see that it has been given the Windows 8 start screen look and feel (what was know as Metro Style a few short days ago).

From this menu option that you can get into by clicking on the Outlook object at the top left of the screen you have access to your mail, contacts, calendar and documents that are located out on SkyDrive. With a new account you will be allocated 7gb’s of storage on your associated SkyDrive and of course have free access to web-based versions of  Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

All of the web based applications have been updated so they show the ribbon interface but they are still limited as compared to the full desktop versions of Office. However, I can’t but admit that for most of our uses, these versions are more than adequate for day in and day out usage. I downloaded the OneNote app onto my Nexus 7 but it crashes instantly. Must be something to do with either the screen size or the version of Android.

You can pull contacts in from several different sources including Gmail, Outlook desktop, Facebook and Hotmail. You have the ability to connect any ICS based calendar system to your calendar display as well. You can use a modified calendar entry to create ToDo lists for the calendar as well. One complaint that I have is that your ToDo List doesn’t' show up on the Agenda Tab. For the way that I would use it, I would like some tab to consolidate all the date/time oriented entries.

Email is setup using one of two grouping functions.You can view your email from folders that you create. Shown in the image to the right, notice that I have multiple levels of folders in the Test Folder. To create a new folder on the top level, Right mouse click on the Folders menu option. You will be given the option of creating a folder or in creating rules for incoming mail. You can create rules based on who has sent it, the sender’s address, the To and CC lines, the message subject line and whether the message has attachments. Quite a bit of control here. You can move the message to a new location, automatically delete the message, apply a category to the message, remove a category from the message, flag the message or forward it to another user/email.

Right mouse click on any folder and you can create a new subfolder, rename the folder, delete the folder, mark all mail as read, or empty the contents of the folder. Right mouse click on an email message you will first see that a check mark will appear in the box to the left of the message. You then have the ability to Reply, Reply All, Forward, Mark as Read/Unread, Delete, Mark as Junk, View the message source and also set up functions for the sender of the message.

If you want to do something to a group of messages click in the box to the left of the header message line for all the messages that you want to process and you will see at the top of the screen the ability mark the messages as junk, move them to a folder and to categorize the messages using categories that you can setup. The categories are Quick Views that you can see in bottom grouping on the image to the right. This allows you to quickly pull messages from multiple folders that have been categorized for these views.

To create a new message just click on the New hyperlink at the top of the screen. You will be taken to a dialog box that you see below:

As you move through the beta of this product you will see the inconsistencies of the screens. Microsoft is still in the middle of the transition between Hotmail, Live Spaces and this new Outlook.com site. It will be very nice once they have made the final programming ports to provide the same look and feel all the way through. This is a pretty nice start for now.

Sophos (Astaro) UTM H/W refresh program is here!

Upgrading to the new UTM9 version software may not be available if you have older Astaro hardware. See table below:

The previous table provides on overview about ASG/UTM hardware models and revisions supported by UTM 9, where each revision belongs to one of the following categories:
“Not Supported”
 UTM 9 will not install
“Not Recommended but Supported”
 UTM 9 will install
 Warning at install time about possible performance issues
“Fully Supported”
 UTM 9 will install
 No warnings

The program is available beginning July 16th, 2012 and ending March 31st, 2013. Delivery of the replacement units will begin September 12st, 2012. Every ASG appliance is eligible for participation in the program – in advance registration of serial number is required.

There is a one-time discount that will be given directly to you the customer. This depends on the model that your are replacing. See table below for what would be your discount:

Contact us for the proper procedure to follow to take advantage of this discount. 1-800-640-7506.