Tech Tips – Page 40

Never Miss an Email Again!

By Laurene Klassen

No matter how many times I organize my inbox I somehow manage to get to the point of needing to reorganize it. In many of my trainings, I’m often asked for tips on how to make sure one doesn’t miss an email from key individuals or contain keywords. Here’s a tip I’ve found handy.

If you are like me, there are probably certain emails that you receive that rank in priority for replies. Maybe it’s from your professor, supervisor, or about a critical project. In any case, I recommend setting alerts on emails that are sent from key partners or contain keywords. You can customize your alert to notify you by playing a specific sound, marking your email with high importance, or even displaying the email in an alert window. So, no matter how many emails you get you’ll be sure to not to miss the critical ones!

For instructions on how to set alerts, and a number of other tips to keep your inbox from spiraling out of control, see our Outlook Productivity handouts for PC and Mac. (By the way, these instructions are written for Outlook 2010 and 2011. However, the steps for setting alerts haven’t changed for Outlook 2013.)

Identify Online Shopping Scams

By Rajat Shetty During the holiday season, Cybercriminals’ potential victims are often caught up in the frenzy of shopping, finding the best deals, and acting quickly to take advantage of limited offers. Email and social networks are clogged with sales and offers, both legitimate and fraudulent. Sometimes haste causes shoppers to miss the warning signs of a fraudulent website.

Avoid Suspicious Websites

Make sure you cross check the contact info before submitting your payment details. In many cases, fake websites put up incorrect contact info like a wrong phone number or an incorrect address. A few other warning signs of suspicious websites are lots of broken links, grammatical mistakes, and spelling errors. If in doubt, don’t check out!

Verify the Web Address (or URL)

Before you type in any credit-card numbers at check out, check the Web address, or uniform resource locator (URL), of the payment page and make sure it’s using a secure connection. You should be seeing either the character string “https://” before the website URL, or a small icon of a green padlock. Also, make sure the URL address is correct, and not a slight misspelling of the real address or a random URL.

For example, check the snapshots below for the official website of Beats headphones. The first one is the original website, whereas the second website is a fraudulent one having the exact layout and font style as the original website. The difference is, when you pay through credit card or debit card on the 2^nd website you are not going to receive any headphones (Not even a fake one!)

Use Caution when Shopping by Phone

Although it can be convenient, use extra care when shopping with your smartphone. Phones are more susceptible to malwares as most do not have an anti-virus. Also, it’s highly unsafe to store your credit card or debit card information on your phone. Only buy from trusted and familiar websites when you shop through your smartphone, and use a password protected internet connection. Never shop over unsecured public Wi-fi. Remember, it’s always better to check twice before clicking the ok button. People loose thousands of dollars in a haste to snag online deals. Protect yourself from becoming a victim to fraudulent websites by exercising caution before giving out your credit/debit card details.

Present Like a Pro

Have you ever been in a presentation where the speaker fumbled through their slides jumping back and forth? …………

PowerPoint 2013: Presenter View

The DVD that Lasts 1000 Years

By John Blank

Did you know that most burned DVDs and CDs don’t last long? Have you ever placed a 5-year-old DVD in the drive only to find out it was no longer readable? This would be tragic if the DVD was your wedding video, pictures of a vacation or other keep sake. There were DVDs that you could obtain that would last longer, but they were expensive and hard to find. Now there is a new technology that is changing all of this. The Millenniata M-Disc is a 4.7GB DVD with a data layer made out of stone-like metals and metalloids. Burned CDs and DVDs have a very soft recording/data layer that isn’t very resistant to heat, humidity and light. However, the M-Disc on the other hand has a much tougher data layer that last for 1000 years. Unfortunately, M-Discs can’t be burned with your current DVD burner. It takes a laser that’s five times stronger than normal to melt stone. On the other hand, M-Discs are backwards compatible and can be read by normal DVD drives. When you replace your CD/DVD burner make sure it is M-Disc compatible.

Cam Scanner: Scan on the Go

By: Rajat Shetty

Most offices are well equipped with high definition scanners, printers, copiers, etc. However, there are instances when people need to scan documents on the go, and a scanner is not readily available. The Cam-Scanner app makes scanning in almost any location possible.

While this application is not suitable for high definition scans, you can surely use it for urgent and basic scans of a two or three page document. I scanned my homework with this application, and it worked just fine!

The free version for Cam-Scanner is available in the Apple-App store and the Google Play store (For Android devices). This easy to use app scans documents with your cellphone camera.

To scan a document, follow these steps:

Download the Cam-Scanner application from your App store and install it on your smartphone.
Place the document you wish to scan in a well-lit area.
Capture the image by pressing the center button on the screen.
Make sure that the entire document is selected, and the edges are not cropped.
Once the image is locked, you will be able to crop the image you clicked as well as adjust the brightness, contrast, and other parameters.
Once you have done this, you can click next, and the scanned image will be generated.
You can convert this image into PDF format and email it immediately, or you can save it on your phone for future use.

Here is a screenshot of scanned document from my Android phone:

The drawbacks associated with this particular application are that you need the latest cell phone which has a high resolution camera (Probably 8 mega pixel onward). Also it’s not suitable, if you are looking to scan large set of documents or books. For a fully functional Cam-Scanner, you can buy the full version called “Cam Scanner Pro”. This is available on App-stores for both Apple and Android phones. However, the free version works fine for small sets of documents. The best part is you can scan, edit, and email the scanned document from your phone, within a matter of minutes.