by Felicien | Jul 25, 2018 | Education
Create and Collaborate With The All-New and Completely Radical Microsoft Whiteboard
What do most companies have in common these days?
The need to collaborate on a multitude of projects. Enter the old-fashioned whiteboard. This key piece of “equipment” is where a group might gather around while someone draws or makes bulleted lists. They write down ideas and suggestions. Everyone joins the discussion with their own unique ideas. Then after the meeting is over, someone erases the whiteboard so the next group can use it.
In today’s world, that’s a pretty outdated system. With all the technological advancements now available, surely there’s something better. Consider Microsoft’s new Whiteboard, a thing of beauty to behold. You can draw on it, make lists, share ideas, and create almost anything.
Microsoft brings the old-fashioned whiteboard into our new modern digital world. Team members can draw, make notes, type, or just get wildly creative. One team member can take up where another left off. Collaborating is easy and fun and it inspires the imagination. Below are just a few of the tools available for Microsoft’s Whiteboard.
Surface Pen and Collaborative Inking
Tasks such as the creation of comics rely on inking for quality and authenticity. Activities associated with high-end software used in the creation of high-quality graphics and comic book effects require the collaborative approach. Microsoft Whiteboard provides a platform for contributors to team up on a project ensuring that authenticity and quality are top notch. In terms of inking, enhancement of graphics and texts, and presentation, the Whiteboard can’t be beaten.
Geometry Recognition
Geometry recognition has applications in security enhancements through the concept of hand geometry in identification systems. Identifications systems, in traditional standards, make use of widely-used and applied features such as fingerprinting, Iris scanning, and facial recognition. However, hand recognition, which is part of the Microsoft Whiteboard Surface Pen application, takes security to another level providing scientific association of the hand contours with uniqueness in identity authentication process.
Table Conversion
Metric conversion of various standards to derived versions is an essential daily activity for multiple applications. Microsoft Whiteboard provides this functionality ensuring that users in various fields with conversion needs are able to integrate this feature into their professional practice. Revisiting the collaborative use of students and organizations of the Whiteboard versions for PC, Mac, Android, Windows, and iOS shows that varying categories of users rely on teamwork to function and to impact growth. Financial analysis and data-related tasks make use of tables and the Whiteboard application provides an easier solution for multiple users working simultaneously.
Automatic Table Shading
The Surface Pen allows users to apply conditional formatting to their worksheets. For corporate and academic uses, conditional formatting made possible by the MS Whiteboard’s Surface Pen functionality allows for interaction with tabular features. And, it offers professional tools for presentations. With reference to the standards of creating tables and the definition of formatting rules in any given project, Surface Pen offers these features ensuring that professionalism is integrated into the task resulting in the reliable quality of projects. Shading is particularly useful in highlighting crucial sets of information, such as financial ratios in financial statements in the expression of priority decision-making pieces of data.
Student and Organization Collaboration
Higher educational institutions offer students opportunities to pursue their professional fields of study. Students also require teamwork to efficiently apply their acquired knowledge on a variety of projects. These requirements are hindered by the inability to work on projects from a remote location without necessarily meeting physically with the team.
Organizations, on the other hand, require professionalism and collaborative dynamics to meet special organization-specific targets. In this regard, teamwork between employees is facilitated to not only support the functionality of an organization, but also the optimal utilization of time as a resource.
Correlation of Adoption to Efficiency
Organizations and individuals seeking maximum productivity will enjoy working with the MS Whiteboard application. Teamwork and project work within organizations is so important these days with people running in different directions. The collaborative features of the whiteboard application make it easy and fun for groups to get together and brainstorm. Individuals and organizations can improve their creativity while functioning at optimal levels. The Whiteboard also ensures that their activities can be tracked, authenticated, and shared with others.
Corporate Application
The MS Whiteboard provides a location diversity function to organizations that operate at an international level. The financial and economic climate of various regions requires organizations to operate from multiple locations taking advantage of emerging markets and sustainability. By collaborating, stakeholders of one organization can work together from different locations contributing to the same project. This approach makes organizational performance a shared duty where reliable ideas are taken into account, processed for their validity, and executed on-demand basis. However, the functionality of this application also runs into difficulties where teams do not share a common language but have to work on the same project. The translation feature of the Whiteboard provides a temporary solution since translated communication may not be as effective as same language communication.
Academic Applications
The onset of online academic courses is one of the significant applications of the MS Whiteboard. Through remote learning, tutors and students can work, present, discuss, and collaborate on academic tasks. The Whiteboard is perfect for schools of all sizes.
Conclusion
Teamwork has never been easier with Whiteboard. It’s the latest technology to take creation and collaboration to the next level for any team. This is a great tool for ad agencies and many other businesses who have a need to design and build things together. The Surface Pen opens up a variety of opportunities for students and leaders alike. Collaborate with others to create something amazing with Microsoft Whiteboard.
by Felicien | Jul 25, 2018 | Education
The July 2018 Microsoft Teams Updates
Microsoft Teams has quickly become one of the more popular chat-based workspace apps offered and it’s included in Office 365. It’s so handy to use and customizable for every sort of team. It’s perfect for one-on-one conversations, open group discussions, or even public meetings.
Teams offers all the tools necessary to make meetings more fun and productive. Microsoft has added some helpful new features for their July 2018 updates. For instance, there are cool GIFs, stickers, and emojis available so team members can show a little personality. The program integrates well with Outlook email and it’s easy to switch between teams. Add to that the ability to use video calling on Android that includes mobile voice and you’ve got an excellent business resource.
How Microsoft Teams Sets Itself Apart
With so many meeting apps available now, organizations want to know why MS Teams is better. That’s a good question and it does have a good answer. Because this app is included in Office 365, it seamlessly integrates with all the programs that today’s business professionals are already using. Within the Teams app, users can access all files and any Office programs such as PowerPoint, Excel, Word and OneNote. In addition, the app features integration with Power Bl, SharePoint and Planner Intelligence using MS Graph.
Though you can open these files using other meeting apps, they are seamlessly integrated into the MS Teams app, limiting the additional steps that users must perform. Many of the exciting features are available with just a single tap. Regardless of what type of business you’re in, the MS Team’s app can be customized to work the way you need it to. That’s one of the big reasons why people in so many different industries choose Team. The app works just as well for a few people or a dozen. It works nicely for business pros, teachers, and students. The app is easy to set up and takes very little instruction to get started. With custom memes and tailored channels, most people quickly become expert Teams users.
New Features for July 2018
After using MS Teams for a while, most people start looking around at some of the more advanced features and there are many of these. Do you need to integrate some common cloud services into your meeting? It’s a simple process.
Partner integration is available for Trello and SAP but Microsoft will be adding new partners in the future. The individual channels contain Bots that can be working in the background on important tasks. In addition to those great features, the Teams App is served from the Microsoft global hyper-scale cloud. That makes it available from anywhere in the world, so if you need to meet with people Japan, in Taiwan, someone in Quebec and a group in India, that would doable and even easy. Team players can share their documents, show a PowerPoint, go over an Excel spreadsheet and work on many other tasks like these. There are virtually a limitless number of tasks that can be done and without the help of an IT specialist.
Works Well for Medical Field
Since the Teams app is compliant with HIPAA, ISO27001, and others, it’s perfect for use in a medical facility of any type or size. But the app could also work well in telemedicine. Though live face-to-face meeting software is included in most programs for the telemedicine industry, Teams could be used in numerous instances. Say you were on the go and needed to use the app from your mobile phone. It’s not only quick and easy but remember that it is compliant with most HIPAA guidelines. Talk to a colleague or patient. Sometimes you just need a quick face-to-face with someone and that’s it.
Excellent Security Built In
The Teams app is big on security as well. With so many thousands of cyber-theft events taking place each year around the world, you just can’t be too careful. Sometimes a team might be talking about their favorite flavor of ice cream and sometimes they might be discussing a new hyperdrive for America’s next rocket ship. Multi-factor authentication and built-in data protection are just two ways Microsoft ensures that your meeting will remain confidential.
Use Teams to Enhance Customer Service
Though this is being done in some organizations, in the future there may be a great number of businesses that contact their customers using apps like Teams, to let customers know about some problem with an order. Perhaps you just sold hardwood flooring to a residential customer for their whole house but now you’ve learned that the flooring is back-ordered for six months. Wouldn’t it be better to speak to this customer face-to-face when you break the news to them? Customers may be less upset when they realize that the store cared enough to have a manager call them and speak to them in person about the problem. And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to retail sales.
Working Together
Microsoft Teams encourages people to work together. You can bring up the new budget from Excel and let everyone go over it, make comments, and suggest changes. You can open the new marketing plan in Word so that a whole room full of execs hear about the latest marketing campaign. They need to become familiar enough with it to pass on the information to employees in their department. The Teams app is used by many private tutors. Since most people have Office 365 already on their computer, there’s nothing new to install.
How to Set Up a Team
Simply go to the Office interface and click on the Teams App. At the bottom left corner of the screen, select “Create Team”, then type a name and short description. Next, add people to your new team. Using MS Outlook, you can add an entire group. Now click “Done” and create a general channel. Other channels may be added later as needed. Name and describe this channel, click “Add” and it’s all set up. Within just a few minutes you can have a specific meeting place set up where you can meet each week with co-workers, students, your doctor, unhappy customers and much more.
Miscellaneous Features For July Updates
Adding and removing team members is simple and only takes a few moments. A tutor who is working with five different students throughout the day could easily change the student’s name quickly in between each lesson. You might start with a private chat, just between the teacher and student. But what if you wanted to add a second teacher or several more students? It’s easy to do that. Just list the name (s) of the people you want to attend, then compose a new message in Outlook to invite them to attend. While in a chat, you can make a video or audio call by selecting the icon for it. Chats can be renamed and this is good for those that get transferred to the different department. You can continue using the same chat room; just add or remove people as needed.
MS Team has so many more features that make life and work much simpler. It is quickly becoming the favorite virtual chat room for business people in every industry. If you’re still feeling you need some help with setting up a chat room, Microsoft offers a great range of informative YouTube videos with step-by-step instructions for how to do just about anything.
by Felicien | Jul 25, 2018 | Education
The Microsoft Inspire 2018 partner conference is now behind us, but the new dawn that it marked for the company’s cloud computing service, Azure, has just begun.
Of course, there was a lot that transpired from this partner conference, especially the new opportunities, resources, and incentives that are now available for partners.
In this write-up however, we focus on the wide range of updates – not in all of Microsoft’s partner programs and products that span Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and other business apps, but its cloud computing service known as Azure.
Here’s a roundup of the tech giant’s biggest updates and additions to Azure from the Inspire 2018 conference.
New Cloud Apps And Technologies
The number of cloud apps and technologies that are available through Azure just multiplied. The first amazing addition to this channel is the Azure Data Box Disk, an SSD-disk based version of the Azure Data Box appliance rolled out in 2017.
With the Azure Data Box Disk, businesses can move data into Azure with much ease regardless of where the data lives. The new offering allows for the transfer of up to 35 terabytes of data from multiple remote locations such as offices or branches – whether on a recurrent basis or once.
The other interesting Azure addition from Microsoft Inspire 2018 is Azure Virtual WAN, a networking service that provides users (businesses) with automated, optimized branch-to-branch connectivity through Azure using last mile internet. It also allows businesses to build a spoke-hub network in Azure that can route traffic to virtual appliances such as Azure network security services and firewalls.
The Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-based network security service that protects your Azure Virtual Network resources. The Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS) is highly available and fully functional, with unrestricted cloud scalability.
The high availability being built-in means that there are no additional load balancers, nor anything that requires configuring. The unrestricted cloud scalability, on the other hand, means that your Azure Firewall can scale up as much as needed to accommodate fluctuating network traffic flows. Ultimately, you won’t need to budget for any peak traffic – which translates to significant cost savings.
Microsoft Is Expanding Private Offers In The Azure Marketplace
As part of Microsoft’s 2019 development plans for its partner network, the company is expanding its private offers in the Azure marketplace. This means that partners will be able to deliver a better buying experience to their customers by confidentially sharing with them solutions that meet their unique buying needs. This way, Microsoft partners are getting a new means to boost their sales with the corporation.
With the private offer feature, partners are also able to offer discounts to select customers on the Azure channel, rather than having to put up with the standard pricing approach, which can be less appealing.
Vetted & Approved By Microsoft: Azure Expert Managed Service Providers
Microsoft just took its Azure Expert Managed Service Provider program, started as a pilot program at the beginning of the year, to another level. The Azure Expert MSP program is a brand-new platform designed to help those select partners who have demonstrated the greatest level of skill and capabilities with regards to delivering consistent managed services on Azure. This helps them to stand out from the pack.
For a partner to join the new Azure MSP group, they have to be carefully vetted by Microsoft. One of the key qualifications for entering the program is to obtain references from multiple customers and pass a rigorous two-day third-party audit, which is repeated every year.
The idea, according to Microsoft, is to ensure that partners in the Azure Expert Managed Service Provider program are prepared to facilitate customer migrations to the cloud and help them with their cloud projects.
Azure IoT Central Gets New Updates
Azure IoT Central, Microsoft’s Software-as-a-Service IoT (internet of things) solution experienced nothing short of a facelift. These updates are introducing support for the business analytics service, Power BI, and task automation tool Microsoft Flow, as a way to make visualization of real-time intelligence possible.
Additionally, partners on the Cloud Solution Provider program are now able to include management and provisioning of Azure IoT Central applications in their subscription offerings.
Customers seeking to migrate their Windows Server and SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 workloads to Azure have also been assured of a time extension and free security updates even as Microsoft is winding down its support for the former.
Beyond Microsoft Gold: New Apps And Infrastructure For Azure
As part of its mission to boost profitability for partners, Microsoft is launching advanced specializations going beyond Microsoft Gold competencies to help partners with differentiation.
Apps and Infrastructure will include SAP on Azure, cloud migration, Azure Stack, Linux on Azure, backup & disaster recovery, as well as high-performance computing and networking.
Conclusion
Microsoft is clearly pushing positive outcomes on its partner network. And judging from the revelations from the Inspire 2018 conference, the company is determined to see this network prosper. They’re making the most of the opportunities that have since come to light and forging ahead for a brighter future.
by Felicien | Jul 25, 2018 | Education
Physical face-to-face meetings are on a sharp decline and this decline is attributed to a corresponding rapid growth of video conferencing technology. The last few years have seen immense development in telecommunications, especially on the teleconferencing front.
First, watch the funny video below that pokes fun at conference calls in real life. Enjoy!
With company staff becoming increasingly remote and many employees opting to work at home, conference calls are the best shot at enhancing collaboration between workers. Physical meetings take time, effort, and money to set up, yet they are often marred with distractions. On the other hand, conference calls are very efficient when setting up properly.
Video Conferencing Can Get Messy If Not Properly Set Up
Despite the outstanding benefits of conference calls, many companies are still reluctant to embrace them and they have valid reasons for their reservations. Being part of an improperly set up conference call can be an awful experience, which might give your company staff a negative impression of conference calls (More so if you are trying it out for the first time).
The PTZ Pro 2
If you’ve ever been part of one before or hosted one, you know how disorderly they might get. That’s where PTZ PRO 2 comes in handy. It’s a conferencing camera built to optimize all aspects of a conference call. PTZ PRO 2 is a solution which enhances the quality of both video and audio to give your conference calls dignity.
What’s PTZ Pro 2 All About?
The PTZ Pro 2 is a state-of-the-art camera technology which has brought new enhancements to video conference calls. The technology was developed with conferencing calls in mind. The camera has a 10X high definition optical zoom with a 2,600 pan and 1,300 tilt.
If you are looking for camera technology with top-notch optics to transmit videos in real time and create the experience of sharing a room with your colleagues, then this might be the perfect fit.
Its adjustable camera controls are efficient and offer more convenience for conference call organizers. The remote control gives the host more functionalities to control the cameras even if they are thousands of miles away. Other impressive enhancements that come with the PTZ Pro 2 include a sharp video resolution, colorful reproduction of images, and a high optical accuracy.
In a nutshell, PTZ Pro 2 is about ease of use and capturing the motion in high definition using better controls.
The PTZ Pro 2 is the ideal camera for large meeting rooms and auditoriums. The lens has a wide field of view, a sharp focus for detailed images, and the camera is free to pan and tilt. The powerful 10x zoom lens has an autofocus which delivers astounding image clarity to participants of the meeting regardless of the distance.
Like other Logitech cameras, the PTZ works for both small and large group meetings. It is compatible with many types of video conferencing software so you don’t have to worry about application compatibility. There’s a good chance that every video conferencing app you’ve used before will work well with the PTZ Pro 2.
Easy To Use
The USB plug-and-play connectivity makes the device so easy to set up and use, you’ll be amazed. All you need to do is connect it to the meeting room computer through a USB port and you will be good to go. PTZ Pro 2 is compatible with most conferencing call software on Macs and Windows devices.
Remote Control
You can operate the PTZ Pro 2 when near it or thousands of miles away. When near the camera, you can use a hand-held remote to tilt, pan, and zoom. The hand-held remote control works if you are operating the camera while in the meeting room. If you have to control it when thousands of miles away, all you need is a downloadable remote control application. The application will give you all the functionalities that the hand-held remote does.
High-Grade Premium Camera Lens
PTZ Pro 2 is decked out with a premium camera lens. Here is what’s special about this lens; it gives you crystal clear images with colorful rendition, sharpness, balanced brightness, and it maintains clarity even when the lens is zoomed in.
You Get To Choose From Different Mounting Options
Unlike many video conferencing cameras, the PTZ Pro 2 gives you multiple mounting options to choose from. It comes with mounting hardware for table top and for wall mounting. For additional flexibility, you have the option of mounting the camera on a tripod thread.
Certified For Business
Not all video conferencing cameras are certified for business. Cameras certified for business have many functionalities which make them ideal for professional purposes. The PTZ 2 camera is certified for use with a number of types of video conferencing software like Skype for Business, Broadsoft, LifeSize Cloud, Vidyo, Zoom, Cisco WebEx, and BlueJeans.
When looking to buy a camera with high definition video and clear audio, the PTZ Pro 2 is worth considering.
by Felicien | Jul 25, 2018 | Education
What is SNMP?
If you are a new network professional in the field of Information Technology, SNMP is an acronym you will come across often. Or you may have heard of it at some point during IT training. SNMP means “Simple Network Management Protocol.” It is an application layer protocol integrated with an internet protocol suite to help with the management of online communication protocols.
SNMP was first used in the late 80’s, a time when companies were investing heavily in internet networks. SNMP effectively aids the monitoring of network infrastructures such as data stations, printers, servers, hubs, routers, WINS, and host configurations.
Today, it is still one of the most widely used layer protocols for simple networks. Many networking specialists love it because it offers a consistent and reliable way of monitoring many devices on a network simultaneously. It also allows for sharing of information between the components of the network even if the devices run on different operating systems.
Why is SNMP important?
Network management protocols like SNMP have made identification and management of network devices easy and convenient. The protocol keeps track of changes in the network and relays the status of all network devices in real time.
SNMP architecture
As the name hints, SNMP has a simple architecture which is based on the client’s server technology. Basically, the server is the network manager; it measures different variables and processes data relayed from different devices on the internet network. Client devices on SNMP networks are referred to as “Agents.” The agents are either computing devices or peripheral devices connected directly or indirectly to the network. They include computers, phones, printers, and network switches, among other devices.
SNMP data Hierarchy
Even though the SNMP network protocol is based on a simple architecture, its philosophy of data hierarchy is a little complicated or at least will seem complex if you are not familiar with it. Fortunately, the data hierarchy is easy to understand once you grasp the concept behind it.
The SNMP data hierarchy works on a tree-shaped format whereby the branches at different heights represent data available for managers at different management levels to collect. These branches are referred to as Management Information Bases (MIBs) and every level represent of MIBs embodies a group device or peripheral device components. Each MIB is identified using either a unique number or a string. The numbers and strings work on the same concept as hostnames or IP addresses and can be interchanged.
All the management information bases have one or multiple nodes. These nodes represent the devices or device components on the MIB. The nodes are marked using Object identifiers (or simply OIDs) which are also denoted using either numbers or strings.
Using the numbers and strings, managers can troubleshoot or run a query on an agent and to find out the status of network devices in real time. For instance, if a manager needs to know the status of an interface, he will start by querying the MIB then narrow down to the OID value which represents the operational status of the interface.
Are the OIDs important?
MIBs and OIDs are data hierarchies on SNMP systems. They may seem confusing at first but there are many advantages to them. The most outstanding advantage is that you can pull down the exact information you need without necessarily sending explicit requests to the client device to collect it. This significantly reduces pressure on network resources and ensures that all data pertaining to the status of the network is readily available to managers on request.
The architecture is also easy to understand, flexible and can incorporate many devices at different parts of the network. The simplicity makes it possible to pull up large chunks of data from the devices quickly without jamming the network system. The data is usually available in its simplest form and in real time, which makes decision making easy and fast.
Versions of SNMP
SNMP has undergone numerous developments over the years. With every new version comes more features and functionalities than the previous version. In addition, each version has different network protocols so you have to be keen on a version that will serve your network management needs best.
One remarkable attribute that makes a big difference between the versions is the security feature. Various network systems have different security requirements, so you must find a version that best serves your unique needs. Below is a highlight of the versions:
SNMPv1─The very first version of SNMP. Has very weak security properties. Still widely used today, especially by companies which have not updated their SNMPs to more recent versions.
SNMPv2- First used in 1993. It had more enhanced security features compared to SNMPv1.
SNMPv3-Released in 1998. It is the most recent version and most secure version.
SNMP Wrap Up
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) offers easier identification and management of network devices. It makes real-time monitoring of the status of your network accurate and dependable. It also makes the management of online communication protocols possible. SNMP evolves and develops with every new version to deliver better features and functionalities.
