Meet the New Windows

It is very unfortunate that Windows 8 has received a lot of negative press, mainly from those who have never used it! Yep, it works better on a touch device which are not that common yet but if you simply press the Windows Key you end up at the desktop. How hard is that?
Windows 8 is certainly a major departure in terms of interface from what most people are used to but anyone who has ever used a tablet or a smart phone should be able to adapt pretty quickly, so I can’t see why some people moan so much?? Are they not using a smart phone? I doubt it. Most of the negativity seems to be coming from those ‘old school’ users who don’t want to learn anything new. However, any new interface always elicits cries of angst. What happened to the day when we couldn’t wait for something new? Have people really become that staid now days?
The secret to success with Windows 8 is to spend some time acclimatizing yourself to the new stuff. It doesn’t take long, 10 – 15 minutes is enough for most people to get up to speed and be more productive than they were with previous operating systems. It would have been great if Windows 8 did include its own usage tutorial but it doesn’t and that has counted against it when it comes to adoption.
A little bit of digging around the Microsoft site reveals a wonderful training document on Windows 8.
Windows 8 End User Training brochure
I’d recommend that any Windows 8 user download and work their way through the document as it covers a huge amount of the new features in Windows 8. In many cases, once you become familiar with these features you’ll really appreciate how much better than can make your technology experience.
Even if you aren’t currently using Windows 8 it is probably worthwhile downloading and going through the document or at least keeping it handy as chances are, one day you’ll be using Windows 8!
Before you write Windows 8 off and consign yourself back to your 1980’s machine, go through the Windows 8 End User Training brochure and then use Windows 8 for yourself. I’m pretty sure you’ll find a whole new world with a bit of knowledge under your belt.

CIAOPS Virtual Technology Meeting–December

The final CIAOPS Virtual Technology meeting 2013 will be held on Wednesday December the 4th at 4pm Sydney time. You can register for free now at:
https://ciaops1213.eventbrite.com.au
This meeting will feature a presentation by Windows Server MVP Boon Tee focused on connecting on premise servers to Office 365. Here, in broad strokes is what Boon will be covering:
1. Integrating Office 365 into the network.

a. WS2012E R2 features
b. How it fits together
c. Using ProPlus
d. Migration

– i. From SBS
– ii. From POP3/iMAP
– iii. MigrationWiz

2. Bug check

a. Essentials only DC or integration will break.
b. Unscheduled Server Backup after reboot
c. GPO setup
d. Licensing

The meeting will the usual swag of news, information and discussion so I hope that you’ll come along and join with us for this last meeting before Christmas and let me know what you’d like to see in the coming year.
I hope to see you there.

Enable Yammer integration in Office 365

A while back Microsoft bought Yammer and since then has been working hard to integrate it into Office 365. If you have an Enterprise Office 365 plan you should now have the ability to enable this integration.

Here’s a brief outline of how to complete this integration.

Login to your Office 365 portal as an administrator. At the bottom of the second column on this page you should see Included services. Select this.

That will now display the above option to the right. Select the link – Yes, activate Yammer Enterprise for my network.

You’ll then be taken to a screen where you can select which domain you wish to activate that on from the pull down list at the top of the screen.

Then select the Activate Yammer Enterprise button below.

The configuration will now commence. As noted this process could take 1 to 30 minutes to complete.

Look out for future post of the Yammer integration with Office 365 as I think this is another HUGE opportunity with the product.

Adding additional SharePoint storage for Office 365 P plans

All SharePoint Online plans provide the ability to add additional storage. In the Small Business plans this can be a little hard to locate. Here’s a quick overview of what you need to do.

Login to your Office 365 tenant as an administrator and select Manage and purchase licenses from under the licenses heading at the bottom of the page.

Click on purchase services at the top of the page and then Add under your Small Business plan on the right under the price.

Select optional add-ons item under user license at $XX.XX

Add your storage and complete the purchase.

Now you should be able to assign additional storage to your SharePoint Online site in the Small Business plans.

Adding space is slightly different for M and E plans and I’ll cover that in an upcoming post. Also, the story is a little different for plan in Australia so beware.

Office 365 Power BI

Here’s a nice video showing the features of Power BI (Business Intelligence) for Office 365.

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http://www.youtube.com/v/jCl8MrNifVo?hl=en&hd=1“;” alt=””>

In essence it allows you to easily report on large data sets. There are plenty of really good examples of this already like:

<img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-99RSHIrJ1nQ/Uo69Org-VvI/AAAAAAAAOj8/cN0CBmhYqz4/video46108484fa0d%25255B9%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('55245746-cc31-47c0-81a9-f21d96164776'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "

http://www.youtube.com/v/KD9GlZGF9rY?hl=en&hd=1“;” alt=””>

No matter how small a business they can benefit from improved data analysis. Great thing is most already have the tools like Excel and Office365.

What really impressed me in the first video is the natural language queries that were performed towards the end of the video. Honestly, take a look at that and tell me that isn’t firstly really cool and really handy, especially for those no-IT type business owners.

There is so much opportunity around BI in the market and so few resellers seeming to grab it. Even down at the SMB level, BI is huge so if you are wondering how to make money as a reseller in the cloud look at getting into BI for your clients. In simple terms, BI helps customer understand their business by allowing them to quickly analyse their data. You won’t regret it I’ll bet.

Office 365 health mobile app

Microsoft has released a new app for Windows Phone (with iOS and Android versions coming soon), that allows you to monitor the health of your Office 365 tenant. You can find out more information about the release at this blog post:
http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/11/21/check-the-service-health-of-your-office-365-service-on-the-go.aspx
and if you actually want the Windows Phone app then you can get it from:
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/office-365-admin/76f9b288-37bc-4d75-8164-16d1df0447a2

Although the app is pretty basic at the moment I see it maturing into being so much more. What it does indicate is Microsoft’s commitment not only to mobile devices but also to the range of mobile operating systems.
if you have an Office 365 tenant download it to your device today and see what it does. Remember, I think that it is only going to improve.