Two sound suggestions

Thought I’d share with you two sound ‘suggestions’ I’ve come across recently.

In my never ending search for methods to be more productive I’ve tinkered with different types of background sound to help improve my focus. The best I have found so far is Focus at Will.

There are free and paid options as well a number of different sound tracks you can listen to. At the very least I urge you to give it a try and see if it does help your focus as that is what the tracks have been specifically designed for.

The other thing you may not have seen with Chrome is that when a tab is playing something a little speaker icon appears on that tab as shown above. This is great when you a lot of tabs open and some annoying ad starts making noise. A quick search of the tab headings in Chrome will allow you to locate that quickly and easily so you can deal with.

Love to hear what results you get with Focus at Will, because it has been very effective for me.

Review – Capdase Karapace Touch Case for Nexus 5

Full disclosure – the review unit was supplied by Mobilezap. You can find this device and others at the Mobilezap category page at:
http://www.mobilezap.com.au/34604/google/nexus-5/cases.htm

The good guys over at Mobilezap have provided me with another Nexus 5 case to review here. This one is more your traditional cover in that it simply fits over the back of the phone. It leaves all the Nexus 5 buttons and fitting available for use directly.
This means that in some areas the cover doesn’t completely cover the edges of the phone (like around where the power cable plugs in). This potentially leaves the phone un protected at that point, so if you drop it and it fall at a certain angle your phone may get damaged.
What I like about this cover is that it is really thin and add little bulk to feel of the phone. I also like the material that it is made out of. The feel is much better and ‘gripper’ that other neoprene style covers.

The cover is easy to pop on and off while fitting the phone like a glove. If you want something light, convenient and like a skin on your phone with a great feel then I’d recommend this cover.
Thanks again to Mobilezap for the opportunity to evaluate.

[VIDEO] Saving a SharePoint Online site as a template

The original post is here:

https://blog.ciaops.com/2013/10/saving-sharepoint-online-site-as.html

but now I have done a video on how to save and re use a SharePoint Online template.

Upgrading a SharePoint site in Office 365 to current version

If you have been using Office 365 prior to February 2013, you would have been on what is known as Wave 14 or the 2010 versions of the software. This means that your SharePoint site collections (i.e. top level sites) probably looks something like this now when you visit:

You’ll see that it still has the older SharePoint 2010 interface but now there is big crimson banner across the top of the page like so:

What this is letting you know is that it you have the option to upgrade the interface (i.e the look and feel) to the latest SharePoint 2013 version.

For most people who have used SharePoint this upgrade is something that you can do immediately. Where it becomes more complicated if you have gone in a done some major customizations to the look and feel (i.e. HTML and CSS changes) or inserted custom code (i.e. solutions and web parts). In that case, you are really need going to need to spend some time testing these with the new 2013 interface. Also remember that upgrading a site collection will also upgrade all subsites automatically as well.

However, in this case, I know I have a very basic SharePoint site collection so I am going to proceed with the upgrade by selecting the Go to the upgrade page now link in the banner.

That will take me to a page like you see above. Here I have the option to Try a demo upgrade if I want but I am happy to proceed with the complete upgrade so I select the Upgrade this Site Collection button.

Importantly, taking this option means that when the process is complete I will be unable to roll back to the 2010 version of my site, so make sure you are 100% certain that is what you want to do.

You’ll receive a confirmation that you want to proceed with this as it is a one way trip! I’m sure I won’t have any issues so I press the I’m ready button to proceed.

Now the upgrade will be scheduled. It may take a while for the upgrade process to commence so be patient. If you get cold feet you can press the Don’t Upgrade Now button, however if just wait this page will refresh every 60 seconds or so to let know the status. Pressing the Refresh Now button doesn’t make the upgrade process commence any quicker (much like traffic lights).

Shortly, the upgrade process will commence as you can see above. Again, the screen will refresh every 60 seconds or so and provided updated information on the progress of the upgrade.

The time to complete the upgrade process will depend on the size of your SharePoint site collection and the amount of information and sub sites it contains.

Once the process is complete you will hopefully see a Completed Successfully message as shown above. If you want to, you can select the log file link to view technical details about your upgrade. That will look something like:

Which is probably only going to be of use if the upgrade failed for some reason.

In most cases you’ll select the Let’s see this new site button in the lower right hand corner.

Doing so should reveal the upgrade site with an updated SharePoint 2013 interface like shown above.

If you do need to revisit the upgrade log you can do so.

Select cog in the top right hand corner and from the menu that appears select Site Settings.

In the bottom right of the Site Settings screen under the Site Collection features select Site Collection Upgrade.

Now select the Preview Site Collection Upgrade Status link in the middle of the page.

You’ll again see the link to the upgrade log file.

Now what happens if you do nothing and don’t upgrade your site collections to the 2013 interface? It is my understanding (and I am not 100% sure about this) that come April 2014 Microsoft will automatically upgrade any old Wave 14 site collections to Wave 15, but as I said I haven’t found anything definitive on whether this will be case and how it will be conducted. Best advice? Upgrade as soon as you can so you have the control.

Social Media for IT Providers eBook

I have just made available the eBook I recently wrote on Social Media for IT providers. This book is free to Cloud Business Blueprint members but I’ve made it available as a separate purchase now as well.

The description of the book is:

If you are a small business and especially if you are a technology provider you should be using Social Media extensively in your business to promote yourself. Any business that isn’t embracing and being successful using Social Media runs the very high risk of being seen as inferior to those competitors who are. When clients need help with their Social Media strategy they are going to turn to their IT provider who, if unable to demonstrate knowledge, run the risk of allowing a competitor gaining access to their clients.

This book will explain to you’re the major platforms and how they can be integrated into a business. It will also provide seven strategies that you can implement to ensure your Social Media implementation is successful.

You can purchase it now from my publications page at:

www.ciaops.com/publications

Watch out for more titles soon.

Better utilization

Although I am not one for New Year’s resolutions I am certainly one for settings goals. One of the ideas I have been mulling over of late is the ineffectiveness with which I have been approaching the resources I have access to.
If I stop and look at all the tools I have access it would be rare that I use even 20% of their full features. Many things, I suggest I would use even less. It is so easy to get distracted and lose focus with so many different options today but I started wondering how much more use I could make of what I already have if I simply spent some extra time learning what features are available and try and move the utilization of that tool closer to 80%.
One the other side of the coin, there are plenty of things that I have signed up for or access occasionally that I really don’t make good use of. If I don’t and I can find such features elsewhere I really should stop using that tool and simplify things.
So with those ideals in mind I am going to try and dedicate myself to looking more closely at the resources I already have and whether I can use them better or whether in fact I shouldn’t be using them at all. Basically optimization if you will.
My approach is going to be to focus more on something when I do use it the next time and try and learn a little bit more about it rather than just using the defaults as I always do. Hopefully, this will move me more towards my goal of 80% utilization along with reduction in the number of things that I do in fact use. I have already found it somewhat frustrating to spend that extra time dedicated to learning about something in depth rather than just moving on to the next item, however in the long run I believe it will pay dividends.
So the my question for you is, how much of the stuff you are doing now could be done better if you just looked a bit deeper into the tools that you use? Even a few percentage points more utilization I believe can yield significant returns.

Retro Internet Guide

I remember when the Internet was but a twinkle in Vince Cerf’s eye but looking at this retro videos of the Kids Guide to the Internet boy do I feel old.

If you remember dial up modems and Netscape then I’d advise you even to take a look at the first few minutes and reminisce about those dial up days and how far we have come (and how old we have gotten).

If you don’t remember all that stuff watch anyway as I’m sure you’ll find it highly amusing at what technology was like back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.