Wedding Planning: There's an app for that!

Getting married?  Why not make the process a little easier and more cost effective through technology.  Weddings and their planning are becoming more and more incorporated into social media. I’m not talking about getting married online.  I’m talking about apps and websites that aid in your planning and communication with guests.  I told my fiance when we got engaged that I would not be the absentee guy and that I would help as much as I can with the planning process.  Being a bit of a nerd, I wanted to be able to incorporate technology as much as possible.  There are a plethora of applications and websites out there that couples can depend on.   For sake of saving time and space, I’m going to talk about the couple that we are currently using.

The first application that we latched on to is a free download called The Knot.  While The Knot is primarily used for weddings, it can be used for couples moving in together or having a child. The Knot sets out a timeline for your planning.  It bases the timeline off of what you put in for your wedding date and plans backwards.  The application provides you with a list of types of vendors that you need and gives you results based upon your approximate location.  This is how the company generates income, similar to Google’s AdWords, the application provides context and location based advertisements.  Each vendor that is listed includes user submitted satisfaction and price ratings.  As you go through your planning process, you can utilize a Knot tool called the LookBook look through and ‘favorite’ items similar to using Pinterest.  There are also tools included to help you keep track of your budget, guest list, registries, etc.  There are many applications similar to The Knot including: Ultimate Wedding Planner, OneWed, and a whole slew of others.  Most of these will be available for both Android and Apple through your app store.

One other very cool application that I came across by accident is called WedPics.  If you’re anything like me, you've gone to a lot of weddings, taken a lot of pictures on your smartphone, and deleted them a few weeks later knowing that you’ll never use or share them.  WedPics offers a couple of different functions, but is primarily a tool used to gather pictures from your wedding guests.  This is also a free download through your app store on either Android or Apple.  Once you download the application and set up your profile, you share your profile via many different channels including email or Facebook.  Once guests have access, they can share any of those pictures with the couple through the application.  This is a big time and effort saver in getting photos from your friends.   Outside of picture sharing, guests can access your wedding registries, hotel accommodations that you've saved blocks for, and even order prints straight from your WedPics albums.

So, if you’re planning a wedding, don’t forget the power and capability of technology.

Links:

http://www.theknot.com/

https://wedpics.com/?q=fbtab

http://www.onewed.com/

Posted by Eric Sitzmann

VIURUSES

Viruses, when you think of this word, what comes to mind?   Sickness? Disease? Illness?  Imagine all of these dreadful things inhabiting your computer, laptop, or smart device rather than your body.  No one wants to be ill and they especially don’t want their devices to be ill.

I personally have been involved with computers since 1998, repairing, diagnosing, training, installing software, even a system administrator.  Viruses are a computer program capable of attaching itself to disks or other files and replicates itself repeatedly, typically without user knowledge or permission.

Hopefully you have heard of computer viruses and the devastation they can cause businesses and individuals, but if you haven’t,  I will tell you about different types of viruses, the ways in which they can be sent, and the computer devices they can attack.  Computer viruses affect every one of us using technology today and come at us in many different forms, can be disguised in many ways, and can attack all types of computer devices.

There are different kinds of virus threats that can affect our computers.  Computer viruses in existence exceeded one million. I have listed the three most popular ones that are being used today.

1.      Worms: They are reproducing programs that run completely independently and spread on their own will through network connections.

2.      Trojan Horses: Are malicious programs pretending to be legitimate programs and purposely do something that the user doesn’t expect.

3.      Logic Bomb: It is a type of Trojan horse that executes when specific conditions occur.

There are a lot of different ways in which viruses are disguised, or how the creator delivers their virus so the intended victim doesn’t know it’s coming.  Here are a few ways viruses are distributed.

1.      Email:

a.       You get an email from a friend or a known acquaintance and open a word document you think is legitimate.

b.      Spam mail you get from a recognizable company.

2.      Drive By

a.       According to the article on the FBI website dated August 2012, I accessed on the 18th of October 2014, this one can install itself when users simply click on a compromised website. Once infected, the victim’s computer immediately locks, and the monitor displays a screen stating there has been a violation of federal law. The bogus message goes on to say that the user’s Internet address was identified by the FBI or the Department of Justice’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section as having been associated with child pornography sites or other illegal online activity. To unlock their machines, users are required to pay a fine using a prepaid money card service.

3.      Security tools:

a.       Security programs

b.      Scanning programs

4.      Software:

a.       Purchased from a retail store.

b.      Purchased online.

 Think about the new technology and what you, your family, and friends, own or want to own;  Smart phones, IPads, Tablets, Cars, Smart TV’s, Gaming devices, or even Robots.

These viruses and the delivery methods used not only affect our computers but can affect all of the devices we have. According to Brad Chicos in the2013 edition of PC World, I accessed on the 17^th day of October 2014, hackers can even attack your web connected printer to gain access to previously printed documents.

As I told you earlier, I have been servicing computers since 1998 and the amounts of problems I have seen because of viruses are too many to mention.  New technology has brought us a long way in just a short period of time.   Make sure you are safe out there with all new technology and let’s enjoy the ride.

Posted By: Jeff Trangsrud

The Cloud

What is the Cloud?

The current joke is that no one really understands the cloud. Is it in the sky? Is it white and fluffy? The cloud, also known as cloud computing has been around since the early 2000’s and is quickly becoming a popular tool for both business and recreation. There is a good chance you’ve used cloud computing already today. Some of the most popular examples include: iCloud, Netflix, Google Drive, DropBox and Yahoo mail.  Without getting too specific, I will explain the basics of the cloud while highlighting the benefits and possible weaknesses.

Cloud computing involves a networked group of large remote servers that allow you online access to computer services. In other words, its internet based computing. This includes access from any device, often including smart phones and can involve multiple users accessing the same data at the same time. It includes both software and services that run on the internet instead of your computer. All of your cloud data is stored in massive data centers all over the world instead of on your hard drive. Often cloud computing is done through licensing, so the user may pay for it as they need it. This makes it more of a service than the classic way of purchasing software.

Cloud computing has been divided into three categories or service models: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) . These differ depending on what types of software or service you need. The service provider can offer to manage anything from servers, networking, web hosting, and storage to applications. The goal is to choose which service model best fits you or your business.

Cloud computing has become popular for a variety of reasons. The first reason is cost. Up front costs are much cheaper because you are not buying an expensive software package and installing it on your computer. Instead you may be buying some sort of license and paying as you need the service. Software is no longer an asset you depreciate on your books, but rather a service. Cloud computing lessens the need for in house IT expertise. Because it can be accessed from anywhere there is no need to have someone in house that can fix it. Maintenance or adjustments can be done from multiple locations and by more than one person at a time. Cloud computing saves local storage space. Because everything is stored in a data center somewhere, there is no need to store it on your devices. This method is also greener because of its lack of hardware. The flexibility is a big benefit of cloud computing. Everything is available on almost any device, many people can work on the same set of data at once (for example google drive), and data will sync between your different devices without any effort on your part. For example you can start watching a show on Netflix at home and when you log on later that day on your phone, it will start you right where you left off.

One of the only downsides is that cloud computing requires you to trust someone else with your data. This requires a huge amount of trust in your cloud computing service provider that they will keep your data save and confidential. There have been a few instances where information was compromised because of cloud computing, but for the most part, providers work extremely hard to maintain the integrity and safety of your data.

Overall cloud computing, though confusing to understand, can be very advantageous for you or your business. It can save you money, storage space and time. So if all of this sounds good, and you can find a service provider you trust, it may be time to switch on over to cloud computing.

Jessa

Software as a Service

Keeping in form with my post about thin clients, this week I’m going to write about Software as a Service, or SaaS for short.   Software as a service is a software licensing and delivery method in which users get their software on a subscription basis and everything is centrally hosted.  Software as a service is becoming more and more prevalent for many reasons that we’ll see as we go on.

One of the advantages to software as a service is that distribution is not done physically, it’s done almost instantaneously.  Through your subscription, typically monthly or annually, you get access to the software and continued support.  While some companies like Microsoft do a bit of sales in the SaaS environment, but still do a bulk of their software sales traditionally, there are companies like Adobe who are doing essentially all of their software sales via the cloud.  Check out http://www.adobe.com/creativecloud.html for more information.

As mentioned above, typically pricing is based upon a monthly or yearly subscription.  As a result, first time setup can be more inexpensive than traditional enterprise software.  Using Saas, it’s made it easier for vendors to charge clients based on other pricing parameters.  Some of these options include charging by how many users have an application or charging per transaction, event, or unit of value.  These alternative pricing structures can allow for businesses to scale appropriately, cheaply, and pretty much on demand.

Some other advantages to software as a service include ease of customization, accelerated updates, and ability to collaborate.   While customization can be very limited, SaaS still offers a higher level than traditional software packages.   Accelerated updates means that updates come much, much more frequently than traditional packages.  Since the software is hosted centrally, updates come from the provider, not from customer initiation.   Also, since the provider has access to all user behavior, it’s easier for them, through the use of analytics, to figure out which features are in most need of improvement.   The ability to collaborate is also a happy side effect to being centrally hosted.  Users can comment on and share documents as well as many other collaborative features.  This would not 

be possible without the central server.

It’s not that I want to end this post on a bad note by any means, but I just want to leave you privy to the risks of SaaS before you go.  Here are some of the top risks according to brighthub.com. You can follow the link at the bottom of this post for further reading. 

•  Companies subject to SOX regulations must ensure that adequate controls are in place to satisfy regulatory requirements

• Risk of unauthorized access, especially when customer information is involved

• Vendor viability.  If your SaaS vendor goes down, the infrastructure they provide goes down too

• Legal Risks.  The legal risks and liability should be clearly understood before implementing SaaS

·   

These risks and many others that can present themselves aren't isolated to use of software as a service.  One thing to keep in mind as you explore the IT world for your best solutions, make sure you do plenty of research of the risks involved.  SaaS may or may not be right for you.

Posted by Eric Sitzmann

http://www.brighthub.com/environment/green-computing/articles/108186.aspx