Chrome Extensions, from Google, for the Google Apps User
We are often asked which Chrome extensions we like and recommend for use with Google Apps. While extensions often relate to third party applications and services, here are several extensions from Google we install for most implementations:
- Application Launcher for Drive
- Chrome Remote Desktop
- Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer
- Google Calendar Checker (for some)
- Google Docs
- Google Docs Viewer
- Google Keep (if the user uses Keep)
- Google+ Notifications
- Hangouts
- Office Editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides
- Save to Google Drive
- Send from Gmail
These can be added by users or configured and pushed out using the Chrome Management service within the Google Apps Admin Console.
If you want assistance managing chrome extensions and other applications through the admin console, please contact our Service Team.
Special Pricing on the LG Chromebase
Through a special arrangement with LG and our distributors, we are able to offer the LG Chromebase for $294, more than 33% off the list price.
Order 10 or more and the price drops to $289 each.
With the Chrome Management License, the cost is $324 or $319, respectively.
The LG Chromebase is great for:
- Computer labs
- Language, math, and other resource centers
- Kiosks
- Workstations in Libraries
- Teacher workstations in classrooms
- Use Chromecast to connect to a projector
- Use Chromecast to connect to a projector
Contact us with any questions, or complete the form, below, for a formal quote:
5 Ways Google Apps Will Help Your Business
Not just an email service, Google Apps is a business platform that enables efficiency and productivity by giving your team better communication and collaboration tools.
In less than 12 minutes, Cumulus Global’s CEO Allen Falcon identifies 5 ways that Google Apps will help your business.
1) Improved Communications
2) Collaboration — More and Better
3) Secure Access — from anywhere at anytime
4) Business Continuity
5) Lower Operating Costs — instead of CapEx + OpEx
The video is a recording of Allen’s Standing Room Only seminar at the Central Mass Business Expo in September 2014. Click Here to view the recording and contact us for more information and a free assessment of your business’ cloud potential.
Video Streaming and Your ISP Performance
As you move to the cloud, you will be more dependent on reliable, well-performing, Internet service.
One of the largest services that impacts Internet, and therefore cloud-based service, performance, is video streaming. The Google Video Quality Report is a free tool that lets you look at the video streaming patterns for your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and others in your area. By comparing usage patterns, you can better understand your ISP’s performance and can determine if your ISP, or another, is best for you.
For general monitoring of Internet connection performance, we recommend Ookla’s Speedtest. This site will test Ping response, download speed, and upload speed, which you can then compare to your contract guarantees. The site will test against the closest server; we recommend testing with several servers in your area to get a better assessment of your speed. Creating an account let’s you save and share your results.
Best Ways to Protect Your Google Apps Account from Being Hacked
We have seen an alarming increase in the number of Google Apps accounts that have been “hacked” across both our business and education customers. Securing your Google Apps account is crucial to protect your sensitive information and prevent unauthorized access.
Google Apps platform security is NOT the issue. ALL of the hacked accounts are due to compromised user identities.
In every case we have encountered, the users have used their Google Apps email address and password with another service that has had a breach, or has had malware on their computer that provided username and password keystrokes to the hackers.
In both types of incidents, hackers then log in as the user and cause mayhem.
Essential Steps to Make Your Google Apps Account More Secure From Hackers:
1) Educate your users that they are not to use their Google Apps password for any other account not explicitly authorized. Users should also not use their Google Apps email address as the username for personal accounts with other services. It’s also critical to understand the risks of using third-party apps.
2) Check Your Systems for malware and make sure your endpoint protection is up to the task. If not, we recommend Webroot Endpoint Protection and Web Security Services (the link is to our edu site, but the service is available to business and government customers as well).
3) Implement Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). In business environments, users should be using 2FA to secure their accounts. Implementation can be involved if you have other services linked to Google Apps, as you will need to generate service-specific passwords.
4) Use Strong Passwords: Create a strong, unique password for your Google account. Avoid using easily guessable information and include a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters.
5) Review Account Activity: Periodically review the recent activity on your account. Google provides a “Last account activity” feature that allows you to check for any suspicious login attempts.
6) Check Account Permissions: Regularly review the apps and services that have access to your Google account. Remove access for any applications or devices that you no longer use or trust.
7) Beware of Phishing Attempts: Be cautious of phishing emails or websites that attempt to steal your login credentials. Always verify the authenticity of emails and URLs before entering your Google account information.
In education environments, 2FA is not practical for all users, as students and many faculty members may not have mobile devices available to access the Authenticator. For schools, we recommend any user with partial or full administrative privileges have 2FA active.
FAQs About Keeping Your Google Account Safe from Hackers
Activating 2FA is covered by our support agreements.
For customers and others without support agreements, mention this blog post and we will discount our hourly support fee by 10%; W
We will discount Webroot deployment fees by 50%.
Both offers expire on December 31, 2014.
Please contact our Service Desk for 2FA assistance; contact Sales regarding Webroot.
OneDrive Unlimited Storage is, in fact, Limited
Microsoft made headlines recently by lifting it’s 1 TB free space limit and offering customer “unlimited” storage. As recently reported by Tech Republic, however, the “unlimited” does not really mean “without limits” when coming from Microsoft.
Specifically, Microsoft limits OneDrive accounts to 20,000 files — a fact confirmed by Microsoft in the article.
A typical MS Office user may have an average MS Office file size of about 30 KB. With a 20,000 file limit in OneDrive, most users will use less than 600 GB of space. Increasing the free storage limit from 1 TB to unlimited is meaningless.
The changes makes for good marketing but offers customers nothing.
Contact us if you are ready for solutions that enhance your business.
USPS Data Breach: What SMBs Can Learn
As a small or mid-size business, you probably do not worry about hackers and data breaches. Your information is safely stored in-house or in a secure cloud service. You do not have trade secrets or intellectual property coveted by foreign governments or industry. You accept credit cards, but those transactions are processed, saved, and secured by the credit card processor … you do not even have credit card numbers in your files or systems. It is not unreasonable for you to think that you are not a data breach target.
You are wrong.
The recent data breach at the US Postal Service should, however, serve as a wake up call. Hackers breached USPS systems not for customer data or credit card information; the hackers stole HR records for hundreds of thousands of postal employees and retirees (customer data was just a bonus). And, while the hackers were not able to go on an immediate debit-card spending spree, they captured all of the data necessary to steal identities — names, addresses, social security numbers, and more.
Regardless of your size, any personally identifiable information in your possession is an incentive for criminals. And you don’t need to be big to be caught. A stolen laptop, compromised account, or lost USB stick can enable data breaches in systems you think are secure.
Malware is the inbound marketing tool for hackers and identity thieves.
When malware spreads, it makes its way onto business computers that the hackers may never have known existed. Malware often sits in wait, capturing passwords or other information and communicating the information to servers half way around the world. Hackers can then use this information to assess the value of the target and to gain more access to even more data. Hackers may also sell this information to other criminals.
Your business needs protection in place, and awareness of the scope of the problem is the first step. Permissions monitoring and management, web filtering, device protection, endpoint protection, mobile device management, and user data protection may all be components of your solution.
Please contact us for a complimentary review of your current data protection coverage.
3 IT Shifts for Small Business: Mobile-Social
The nature of computing and how it’s used by business is changing – rapidly. You have heard the buzzwords … mobile, social, cloud, big data, analytics, and others. You probably have thought about your own business and thought the these changes are just for the enterprise.
Three major shifts in technology, however, can and will impact your organization: Data; Cloud; and Mobile-Social.
Shift 3: Mobile-Social
Why do we combine Mobile and Social? Social would not exist without Mobile. Before the mobile revolution, social was limited to “Other who viewed this also viewed …” cues like those on Amazon.com. Social works because it is quick, easy, convenient, and immediate.
And while mobile technology lets us stay connected to the office and provides us access to information, the real transformation with mobile and social technologies is engagement.
Engagement, driven by mobile and social technologies, lets you build trust and establish value. And, if done properly, lets you build trust and value in a secure manner.
Mobile-Social lets you expand the nature of your engagement. You can easily move beyond 1:1 conversations with your customers. The #hashtag and the @mention let you “listen in” on the conversations you customers are having with their friends, and can give you the opportunity to join the conversation.
While there are examples of social media posts going viral and shaming companies into better behavior. The real opportunity lies with this type of communication:
“We saw you post about X. We were not aware of this issue and will fix it quickly. A customer rep will call you shortly to assist you directly.”
And via communications like this:
“Thank you for mentioning your great experience with our service. We are sending you a small token or our appreciation for your business and support.”
Most small business, like yours and ours, could never afford the infrastructure necessary to facilitate, monitor, and act on social media interactions. Cloud-based services, however, have the horsepower and economy of scale to enable us to leverage social-mobile technologies. And, make it possible to integrate our social-mobile applications with our operational and line of business systems.
3 IT Shifts for Small Business: Cloud
The nature of computing and how it’s used by business is changing – rapidly. You have heard the buzzwords … mobile, social, cloud, big data, analytics, and others. You probably have thought about your own business and thought the these changes are just for the enterprise.
Three major shifts in technology, however, can and will impact your organization: Data; Cloud; and Mobile-Social.
Shift 2: Cloud
Not everything labeled “cloud” is actually “cloud computing”. For our purposes, that’s okay. Whether meeting the strict definition of cloud computing or a hosted service, the cloud is transformational.
Virtualization, one of the underlying mechanisms of building cloud services, is the entry point for most businesses doing it themselves. Virtualization, however, is only the baseline.
The real power of the cloud is that IT and business processes transform into digital services.
Filing an auto insurance claim, for example, used to be a time-consuming process with paper forms, phone calls, visits to repair shops, and meeting with adjusters. Today, filing a claim is digital service available to the policy holder by mobile app that instantly puts the information in the hands of the broker, adjuster, and back-office.
Cloud technology has the power to transform business models. Small businesses are less limited by geography than any other time in human history. Scalable, affordable resources empower companies to experiment and development without prohibitive capital investment. The pace of innovation accelerates and time to market drops.
While some small businesses may deliver cloud-based solutions to customers, for your business, the impact on the customer may be indirect. Better relationship management and systems enhance the way we sell. Better support systems scale with our customer base, enable self-help, and improve communications. Even simple abilities, like secure calendar sharing, make it easier for your customers to make appointments to speak with you and your team.
The cloud makes it easier for us to select specific applications and services. And we can integrate these applications and services into a single computing ecosystem without huge investments in middleware, custom programming, and infrastructure.
Where you start with the cloud depends on how you want your business to evolve. We recommend beginning with a platform that enables communications and collaborations, and can serve as the integration point for CRM, ERP, and other applications, as well as line of business systems.
