Technology Gurus

Why black plates had to go

Michael Allen — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:54:41 +0000

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Nunc pharetra mattis nisi eu tempor. Vestibulum diam massa, elementum sed posuere sed, ultrices vel justo. Ut hendrerit metus a massa semper sed consectetur justo imperdiet. Ut malesuada nisi id massa tincidunt nec elementum libero gravida. Sed malesuada pharetra orci sed tempor. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Cras ultrices, purus eu aliquet pharetra, metus elit sodales libero, at faucibus arcu enim quis est. Donec blandit euismod neque et tincidunt. Quisque ac odio est, ac aliquet diam. Sed et tortor a augue blandit porttitor. Proin eu ullamcorper justo. Sed sem nibh, iaculis vitae vulputate vitae, faucibus eget arcu. Quisque nisl nulla, tincidunt non venenatis ac, rutrum sit amet nisl. Proin tristique dapibus luctus.

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New D8200 camera has cloth-ripping capabilities

Michael Allen — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:52:34 +0000

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Aliquam accumsan risus eu.

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Daily metal injections proven to be healthy

Michael Allen — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:23:48 +0000

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Aliquam accumsan risus eu.

Curabitur non orci vitae urna fermentum convallis at id erat. Nunc elementum consectetur erat, quis pretium tortor mollis nec. Sed at elit enim, quis ultrices magna. Curabitur nisi magna, lobortis ut mattis sit amet, mattis eget ipsum. Donec posuere lectus eget ipsum fringilla malesuada. Curabitur arcu sapien, facilisis sit amet mattis tempus, fermentum sit amet neque. Ut vehicula erat sit amet dui facilisis porttitor. Cras pretium magna non odio interdum consequat vehicula diam tempor.

Longer, portrait images are cropped accordingly

Michael Allen — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:03:09 +0000

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Aliquam accumsan risus eu.

Curabitur non orci vitae urna fermentum convallis at id erat. Nunc elementum consectetur erat, quis pretium tortor mollis nec. Sed at elit enim, quis ultrices magna. Curabitur nisi magna, lobortis ut mattis sit amet, mattis eget ipsum. Donec posuere lectus eget ipsum fringilla malesuada. Curabitur arcu sapien, facilisis sit amet mattis tempus, fermentum sit amet neque. Ut vehicula erat sit amet dui facilisis porttitor. Cras pretium magna non odio interdum consequat vehicula diam tempor.

Post with direct Video

Michael Allen — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 14:00:37 +0000

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Aliquam accumsan risus eu.

Curabitur non orci vitae urna fermentum convallis at id erat. Nunc elementum consectetur erat, quis pretium tortor mollis nec. Sed at elit enim, quis ultrices magna. Curabitur nisi magna, lobortis ut mattis sit amet, mattis eget ipsum. Donec posuere lectus eget ipsum fringilla malesuada. Curabitur arcu sapien, facilisis sit amet mattis tempus, fermentum sit amet neque. Ut vehicula erat sit amet dui facilisis porttitor. Cras pretium magna non odio interdum consequat vehicula diam tempor.

Smaller images – are automaticly centered

Michael Allen — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:56:39 +0000

Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365—Two Options for Email in the Cloud.While the decision to have some of your IT resources “in the cloud” can be a complex one, one area we get asked about often is email and productivity applications. Below is a summary from two industry giants: one from Google and the other from Microsoft, and see how they compare

Google Apps is a service from Google that started in 2006, with the introduction of Gmail—a hosted email service, and which later incorporated other apps such as Google Calendar, Groups, Talk, Docs and Sites. Google Apps allow customers an independently customizable version of these Google products under their own domain name. The entry level option is free, but the package offered for Businesses is a paid service with an annual fee per user and additional storage space.

Storage. Gmail, Google Apps’ email service starts with a sizable 7GB of free storage. Business users get 25GB. Bear in mind however that this storage space is shared with any data you have in other Google properties such as Picasa Web Album and Google Docs. Extra space can be bought however starting with USD $5 per year for an extra 20GB of storage. E-mail attachment sizes are limited to 25MB.
Calendaring and Task Management. Gmail can be integrated with the overall excellent Google Calendar application. Google Calendar allows you to easily share personal calendars with colleagues, or create shared calendars used by groups of people (such as a calendar to track meeting room reservations, marketing events and others). Google Calendar also offers a built-in, but somewhat underpowered task management tool. Tasks can readily be added with due dates, but not readily shared or cannot be nested or linked with other tasks.
Spam filtering, security and reliability. Gmail’s spam filtering features a community-driven system. Email tagged as spam by users help identifies similar messages as Spam for all other Gmail users. Generally the system works well, although some have complained that it can get over aggressive in its filters. In terms of security and reliability—Gmail has been criticized in the past with showing ads in its free Gmail service that display based on key words in the user’s messages—potentially violating their privacy. Its paid service offers however the option of disable these ads. Reliability is generally good with very few, but widely publicized disruptions in service.
Usability. Gmail offers a host of unique usability enhancements that make it different from most other mail services. For one for a web app it loads really fast, as Google has been known to studiously optimize web page loading performance for their products. Another is that it offers a threaded view of messages by default. It also uses a starring/labeling system to tag and segregate messages instead of using folders. Another interesting enhancement done recently is the ability to sort messages by “importance” where it learns based on your usage over time what email messages it thinks you think are important.
Mobile access. Gmail offers a version optimized for mobile devices, as well as support for a variety of devices for their native mail applications such as iOS and Android.

Overall Gmail is a solid mature choice if you are thinking of moving email to the cloud and are not afraid of being on the bleeding edge of cloud services and technology.

Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft Office 365, like Google Apps, offers a host of applications such as online versions of productivity tools which we all already know and use such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Most however work best when they are used in conjunction with your desktop-installed Office applications. Focusing on email, Office 365 offers a Hosted Exchange service, which transforms the mature, business-proven on-premise application to an on-demand service. Compared to Google Apps, it is quite new—being introduced only last June this year, although its suite of products in an alternate form has been around for much earlier.

Storage. Microsoft’s Hosted Exchange email service gives users 25GB of storage. Attachment file sizes are limited to 35MB. Additional storage can be purchased for $2.5 per GB per user per month.
Calendaring and Task Management. Exchange integrates a mature feature set for personal productivity including calendaring, resource management, and task management. As an example tasks can be grouped, color coded and easily sorted. Emails can be converted as tasks and so on.
Spam filtering, security and reliability. This is an area where perhaps Microsoft easily outshines Google with Exchange’s roots as an enterprise-class application. It offers spam protection, antivirus and others via Microsoft’s Forefore Online Protection for Exchange technology. It offers other features such as more full features user management, identity access management, mail archiving, etc. If you are in a highly regulated industry like financial services or healthcare these features may be essential for your business.
Usability. While the web apps of Office 365 is not as fast loading or as slick as Google, it does offer familiarity. Modeled after their desktop brethren, or directly integrating with them—they offer a smoother migration experience for users specially if they have been weaned on Outlook.
Mobile access. Like Gmail Microsoft made sure to support a variety of devices on launch, as well as integration with a variety of devices—specially enterprise stalwarts like Blackberry mobile phones.

Overall Office 365 is a solid choice if you are thinking of moving email to the cloud but may be hesitant with changing the apps your users already know and use. Also if you are a business with strict policies related to security and compliance—this service may be something your auditors and IT people may be more comfortable with.

Interested in learning more? Can’t decide which to try? Let us know and find out how we can help get you the right balance between your existing IT systems and infrastructure and the cloud.

Curabitur non purus ut lectus blandit auctor. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Cras viverra egestas sem, nec congue sapien posuere sed. Sed ligula ipsum, tristique et venenatis sed, vulputate vitae orci.

Nunc pharetra mattis nisi eu tempor. Vestibulum diam massa, elementum sed posuere sed, ultrices vel justo. Ut hendrerit metus a massa semper sed consectetur justo imperdiet. Ut malesuada nisi id massa tincidunt nec elementum libero gravida. Sed malesuada pharetra orci sed tempor. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Cras ultrices, purus eu aliquet pharetra, metus elit sodales libero, at faucibus arcu enim quis est. Donec blandit euismod neque et tincidunt. Quisque ac odio est, ac aliquet diam. Sed et tortor a augue blandit porttitor. Proin eu ullamcorper justo. Sed sem nibh, iaculis vitae vulputate vitae, faucibus eget arcu. Quisque nisl nulla, tincidunt non venenatis ac, rutrum sit amet nisl. Proin tristique dapibus luctus.

Cras non nunc dolor, sed accumsan felis. In in vestibulum metus. Nullam rhoncus, nisi ut sollicitudin tempor, leo augue mollis augue, vel euismod libero magna eu dui. Donec convallis, odio vitae condimentum lacinia, mi risus ornare nulla, et consequat mi erat et justo. Suspendisse sed elit diam. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

Aliquam accumsan risus eu.

Nulla blandit libero vitae lectus volutpat vulputate. Cras egestas commodo placerat. Quisque eleifend ullamcorper lorem. Duis odio mi, fermentum sed sagittis quis, porttitor id massa. In accumsan tincidunt sem quis eleifend. Pellentesque in sem sit amet tellus aliquam auctor a in purus. Sed augue nisi, vulputate ut scelerisque at, aliquam eu velit. Aliquam non nisi non leo laoreet condimentum nec sit amet tortor. Praesent ut tellus augue.

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