All I Want for Christmas: The Exciting Conclusion

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

When the Genius at the Apple bar told me that it would be a simple process for them to migrate all the data from my old Mac PowerBook G4 to my new MacBook Pro I wondered if it really would be that simple.  Nothing is ever simple.

I stopped in to the Apple store with a happy baby and two computers.  I left the Apple store with a happy baby and zero computers and a promise that I would have them back in less than 48 hours.  So far, so good.

Two days later I drove to the mall on a Saturday in December – not the wisest thing I have ever done but I was itching to get my hands on this new machine!  I popped it open while I was there and I could see all my old documents, my iTunes library.  It looked like we were in business!  I left the Apple store on a Saturday in December without a headache.  It took me longer to park my car than it did to take care of business.  Three cheers for stellar customer service.

Kind of.

When I first took the new MacBook Pro out of the box it looked fancy.  It looked new.  After I picked it up from the Genius Bar it looked like my old G4.  Sure, the screen was amazing.  But the “new car smell” was gone. When my files were transferred the entire user profile from before had been moved.

I suppose for some it might be perfect that all of their old icons were there. All of the ancient file structures and junk I should have long ago deleted still in its place.  But I just wanted my important files.  My Itunes library. My assorted documents and the small handful of videos and photos I have not stored in the cloud. I didn’t really want to eliminate the “newness” though… what to do?

I could call and schedule another appointent with a Genius, of course.  Or I could give it a go on my own.  I decided to give it my best shot.

This might not be the Apple approved workaround for getting your data moved over without mirroring your old machine – but it worked.  The only thing that is required is that you have enough storage on the new one for two copies of everything you moved from the old one.  All I did was drag everything I wanted in to the Shared file of my old user profile and then log out.  I popped over to the shiney and new user profile (the new and improved Kelly) and copied everything in to the appropriate places from the Shared file.

At this point I took a look at my memory available and could see that I was eating up an outrageous amount of space.  Of course, I was! I had two copies of all of my data. With the kind of courage afforded a person that still has copies of everything on another machine entirely I deleted my old user profile off of the new machine and Voilà! I was all set!

Just as I finished patting myself on the back I figured maybe I should try and actually get some work done.  I opened up WordPress so I could begin to regale you with my tale only to discover that I couldn’t make the applet work.  It seems with this last fall’s round of operating system updates Apple has removed its java applet all together.

I’m not a computer whiz but I knew well enough to head over to Java and download the software and install it.  Easy, right?  Nope.  I did that.  And still, nothing was working quite right.  Off to the Apple store.

“I am sure this is what everyone says when they watch you fix something in ten seconds flat, but I swear that is exactly what I did and it didn’t work.”  The Genius bar employees are well known for their ability to stifle their inner eye roll.  I am certain they are tempted.  Nonetheless, I am always amazed when they don’t.

“Several people have come in with this same problem.  I am not sure why the Java software sometimes doesn’t take.  But it looks like you are all set.”

So, I am.  All set.  Merry early Christmas to me! Is anyone thinking about a new MacBook Pro?  Have any questions?  I am happy to share what I am learning.

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All I want for Christmas…

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

By Thursday afternoon at 4 pm I had been looking out the window casually for approximately 7 hours.  By 5:15 pm I had been looking out the window casually for 7 hours and like an overexcited child on Christmas morning for an hour and a half.

I piled the kids in to the car and ran to the grocery store.  I would be gone thirty minutes, tops.

On our return trip from the store I saw the FedEx truck coming down our street.  It had already passed our driveway.  I slammed on the brakes.  I may or may not have put my car in reverse and considered careening down our quiet neighborhood street backwards.  In a rare moment of completely adult behavior I resigned myself to the fact that I would be picking up my new Macbook Pro with a stunning retina display at the FedEx place in the morning.  I had missed the truck.

I was getting the kids out of the car when the FedEx man pulled in the driveway.  He was smiling.  ”I don’t know what is in this box but you sure looked upset when you drove past me!”

Christmas had come early, indeed!

When you are related to the boss man at TMI it is difficult to answer the question “How’s your laptop?  Do you think you need another Mac?”

Do I need another Mac?Of course I don’t need another Mac.  My vintage mac laptop (yes, that is really what Apple calls a computer past a certain age!) is working just fine.  My most recent operating system update ate up the very last of the tiny bit of memory but it works.  It has been running like a top for almost five years and for several years prior to that it had belonged to a former TMI employee.  I had no reason to think it was going to die.

“I don’t really need a Mac.  But….”

It was Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving when David and I sat down on the couch and finalized the order.  Apple’s rare one day sale was too tempting to pass up.  The additional year long one to one Apple workshops and the data migration provided by Apple meant I could take the new machine in with the old machine and get everything moved over.  It would be a seamless transition.

Right?

Does anything ever go as planned? Even a process coordinated by the only company I can think of that sells a product that is supposedly so user-friendly it comes without an instruction manual in the box is bound to have a hiccup.

I got my machine back 48 hours later.  But the old data had been migrated to another user, not the Kelly I had already created.  What to do?  Schedule another appointment, right?

With a little patience and the guarantee that if I messed things up I could schedule another one to one with a Genius I was brave and I took things in to my own hands.  I had been staring at this lovely machine like a new car for days.  I had been idling in the driveway and stroking the steering wheel.  It was time to take it for a little drive.

Stay tuned as I fill you in on my transition from a seven year old Powerbook G4 to a shiny new Macbook Pro.  I’d tell you now but I have an appointment at the Genius Bar. Spoiler Alert:  I got my users straightened out, but I have just one little question.  Okay, maybe two.

When you get a new piece of technology do you find yourself struggling?  Do you try to set it up like the piece you are replacing or do you go all in for the new experience?

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Shop until you drop!

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

Are you on your couch in a food coma?  Did you have turkey and mashed potatoes for breakfast?  Or are you reading this on your phone while you wait in a mile long line at a big box store?  There are lots of ways to spend Black Friday (the day following Thanksgiving, the largest retail sales day of the year.) If you didn’t head out late last night than you might still be developing a game plan now for your Black Friday shopping bonanza.

Take a few minutes to get prepared and you might save yourself a lot of money and a lot of time! There are a bunch of different apps available that will pull together some of the day’s best deals.  The Black Friday Deal Finder from Fat Wallet is available only for iPhone and iPad.   This is a great app that lets you search by online availability and price.  This is a good tool to use for in-store price comparison as well.

The Shop Savvy Bar Code Scanner is available for iPhones and Android phones.  It will allow you to simply scan the bar code of an item and locally compare the prices.  While other shoppers are madly googling on their smart phones you can simply scan the bar code!

Price comparison will help you make sure you are not getting swept up in the shopping frenzy.  But are there are many items you should avoid during the Black Friday shopping if you can help it.  This article from The Week points out that many items are actually much less expensive at different times of the year.  Toys tend to go lower in price mid-December as stores are trying to liquidate their holiday inventory.  Winter clothing and boot prices will plummet in January.  Beware of low-priced tablets and televisions.  These rock bottom prices are often only found on off-brands with specs that do not compare to their high-end cousins.

If you had your heart set on an Apple product you might be under the impression that there aren’t any Black Friday deals in your future.  Recently Apple announced an unprecedented one day sale.  Ordering online will give you free shipping or stop in an Apple store.

While savings of 10% might not compare with the slashing of prices at Best Buy or Dell (savings of up to 30%!) if you are holding out for an Apple product it is the only savings you are likely to see before the holidays.

Maybe you have decided to avoid the crowds and take advantage of the Cyber Monday deal and do your shopping online this season? Wherever you have decided to do your shopping I encourage you to get out on Saturday and stop by a small business in your town.  Small Businesses give so much back to their local communities.  It is important we remember to support them on this big holiday shopping weekend.

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Is Your Email Secure? What does that even mean?

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

Unless you have had your head in the clouds (up with your music and your pictures from last summer’s vacation, your recent credit card purchases and your internet browsing history) you have probably heard by now about General David Petraeus‘ and  General John Allen‘s recent scandals.

A quick catchup for those of you that have been taking a break from all things news in the wake of the election – David Petraeus, former Director of the CIA resigned recently.  The details of his extramarital affair and the ensuing scandal can be found on this wiki page if you’re interested in the full summary.

What I find most interesting about this scandal is the way that technology played a role in the discovery.  Petraeus and Broadwell had been communicating thorough his personal Gmail account.  In an effort to keep things on the down low they were saving their emails as drafts instead of sending them back and forth.  Unfortunately for Petraeus, nothing is “personal” when you are the director of the CIA.  His draft emails were just as easily uncovered as any email he had sent.  They were saved alongside his sent mail on Google’s servers just the same.

For many of you this recent scandal may have you feeling uneasy.  How much of your “personal” activity could be subject to discovery?  Even when you think you are being clever there is more information about you available than you might think.  Do you have a credit card?  Your purchases are in the cloud.   Last week I wrote a blog post about Burt Bacharach.  This morning I got an email to tell me that Amazon had three different Best of Burt CDs for sale.  Is that a coincidence?  I don’t think so.  My Amazon account and my blogging log in email are the same.

I could talk to you about Big Brother and your Internet history and whether or not your “private browsing” is really private.  But wouldn’t that just feed the potential paranoia?  If you have ever taken your computer somewhere and said “Help! I think I deleted my term paper” and been relieved when it was recovered than maybe the permanence of your digital “paper” trail is a good thing?  In my constant efforts to declutter I don’t save anything.  If I need another copy of the power bill from four months ago I can log in and print it.

I choose to look at the permanency of my digital activities as a blessing instead of a curse. Perhaps because I am a happily married stay at home mom with a closeted interest in cheesy love songs popularized in the late 1960s? Not a lot to hide there.

Do you take measures to keep your personal information offline?  Are you concerned about the amount of information that is readily available not just to officials but to advertisers?  Do you view the cloud as a failsafe catch all of your digital life or a possible accident waiting to happen?

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In the aftermath of Sandy

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

TMI would like to offer heartfelt sympathies to the thousands of people that were touched by the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy. If you were fortunate enough to not have been personally affected by the storm you have surely been watching it on the news and following the struggles of distant friends and relatives via social networking.  Here in DC we we were very lucky to have been spared.  Our corporate offices were closed for a couple of days but we were able to keep working because we were prepared for the worst.  After last July’s storm we are well aware how quickly Mother Nature can throw us for a loop.

Our first instinct is, of course, to help out however we can.  But as businesses open back up and kids go back to school up north many of us wonder how we would have fared in that situation.  In times like this it is impossible not to put yourself in the position of those that are struggling.  Perhaps you watched small business owners, employers and employees struggling to keep their businesses afloat without the numerous technology based solutions at their disposal.

Alice Summers, TMI’s Director of Sales writes:

If your business is like so many in the area, Sandy may have caused you to consider concerns around business continuity due to expected power outages and other issues. Hopefully, you were lucky enough to avoid actual downtime! You know it’s a big deal when the NY Stock Exchange closes the doors – but of course they were able to continue online operations, thanks to the wonder of cloud computing.

Maybe you aren’t utilizing the full potential of the cloud for your business. I know that this over-used buzz word can seem shrouded in mystery, and we’ll be happy to break it down for you. I would love to share with you how TMI helps small and medium businesses minimize risk and maximize stability, all while controlling costs by leveraging cloud technology.

If Hurricane Sandy has you feeling like you need to be better prepared in the future I encourage you to contact us for a free consult.

 

 

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Trick or Treat!

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

Trick or treat, smell my feet, buy me an iPad mini and a Microsoft Surface so I can check them out!!  Wait.  That doesn’t rhyme at all.  I promised myself I would not write about tablets and holiday shopping before the first of November.  We have one more holiday to get through before the mad rush for holiday shopping and the top gadgets of the year are all anyone can tak about.

-M.C. Langer at Instructables.com

Halloween is next week!!  Has technology changed your Halloween decorating or your costumes? The pumpkins on my front porch are filled with little LED tea lights instead of the candles of my youth. This way I will not set fire to the trick or treaters in their flammable polyester costumes.

My favorite DIY Halloween costume is perfect for the tech person that never throws anything away.  How many monitors or printers do you have in your garage?  With some duct tape and some creative disassembly you can make quite an impressive robot out of those old pieces of equipment.

I have seen more than a few examples of glow in the dark jellyfish costumes.  Use your imagination and a hot glue gun, some shimmering streamers, glow sticks  and a clear umbrella.  Voila! an awesome jellyfish costume.

source: Foxnews.com

Maybe you are an antisocial type.  Or attending a Halloween party filled with people you can’t stand.  Plug in some earbuds to your phone (or your pocket and just pretend you can’t hear anyone!) wear your favorite black t-shirt and a pair of black pants.  A little duct tape can attach a flourescent piece of poster board to your back and you have been transformed in to an Apple shadow dancing logo!

Even if you don’t plan on dressing up and you haven’t been working on your Ghostbusters costume maybe you still want to hunt ghosts to get in a spooky mood.  You’re in luck with this app for Windows and Android phone users.

If your kids (or you) are anticipating sugar overload later this week maybe you’d prefer not to make any real Halloween cookies.  With this app for iPad you can decorate cookies to your heart’s content and keep your blood sugar in check!

This Halloween season there are a couple of gadgets showing up on every Top Ten Halloween Gadgets list I run across – the Psycho inspired shower curtain, the inflatable Headless Horseman from Hammacher Schlemmer (a steal at $249.95!) But my all time favorite Halloween gadget might reveal the ages of my audience – 7-year-old kids and 29-year-old umm… boys.  For less than ten dollars you can have a toilet paper holder (just the roller that fits in a standard toilet paper dispenser) that will play spooky sounds whenever it is motion activated.  I don’t know about you but a good reason to hide outside a bathroom door listening for your guests to shriek when they hear a digital boogie man is fun for all ages in my book.

Surely you have seen the Gangnam Style Halloween decorations by now.  And if you haven’t I apologize for the earworm.  Happy Halloween!

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Curious about Alice?

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

“It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change,” says Alice in Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.

You might very well have said the same thing while on the phone with your IT person. Or while you furiously clicked at the boxes popping up on your screen. You shouldn’t feel as if you have fallen down a rabbit hole when you talk to someone about the technology that is supposed to be simplifying your home and business.

TMI has their very own Alice. Alice Summers is TMI’s newest addition. She has been charged with making sense of your IT needs and helping you find a solution that suits both your requirements and your budget. I asked Alice what makes her a perfect fit as a front line representative for TMI.

“I’ve been told that I have a knack for making technology concepts understandable – and that’s because I just explain it the way I’ve understood it. Often, I require a few different explanations with progressive “dumbing-down” before I fully grasp a new offering. I have to understand and explain not only what we can do but why it matters. In reality, I’m probably just a little more technical than our average customer – definitely not as technical as some! But I’m not about the technical stuff; what I care about is how [this technical stuff] can help our current and prospective clients to serve their customers better and end up with better relationships and more profits.”

But of course a sales person is going to sell themselves, right? She sounds like a dream! So, what sets Alice apart from a “typical salesperson?”

I’m not a “typical sales” person, either. My pitches aren’t always polished and perfect, and I’ll admit when I don’t know an answer off the top of my head. I err on the side of over-communication. When I tell you I’m going to do something, I do it – and if I make a mistake, I own up to it. I’m just a real human being looking to solve problems in a way that’s good for both of us.”

Still not convinced that TMI’s new Director of Sales isn’t just a tech person in a sales person’s clothing? Look at this smile. You can hear it over the phone.

I haven’t had the chance to meet Alice. She is in Nashhville, TN and I am just outside of Chapel Hill, NC. In fact, neither one of us are located in TMI’s office in Arlington, VA. Stay tuned and I will fill you in on what it is like to work from home and how TMI can help you get an employee set up to be maximizing profits from their home office.

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The IT Guy

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

If you have worked in an office with a quality “IT guy” then I am sure you have been grateful.  It’s nice to be able to pick up your phone, dial an extension and say “Hey, do you have any idea why I get a message that says XYZ when I try to print?” Even if your “IT guy” sighs before they hang up you know they will stroll in to your office at some point in the day and make your printer work.  But what if there was an alternative?

If you are a small business owner than you know the cost of a quality “IT guy” is high.  Salary.com reports $150K annually on average for a senior network engineer or network director and unless you have an entire IT department that is probably what you’ll require to keep your business up and running if you depend on your technology.

Sitting at your neighborhood bar or mingling at a monthly business after hours you might have heard someone say they were considering “outsourcing” their IT.  Was there an audible gasp?  Did the bartender wearing a “Think Globally, Drink Locally” tshirt turn around and give you a dirty look?  Outsourcing is not synonymous with offshoring.  Outsourcing your IT to a local company will not mean you need to pick the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle bumper sticker off of your hybrid car.

Outsourcing, or purchasing a service from an outside subcontractor that you had previously provided internally with an employee, might be one of the smartest way to keep your business going strong. Here are a few reasons why:

  • Cost: This one is a no-brainer.  The cost of an employee or a department full of employees is significantly higher than paying only for the services you require.
  • Increased Staff Productivity: When multiple problems arise an internal IT department must prioritize.  We have all seen an example of the adorable young secretary with the lightning fast computer that works like a top, right? You need all your employees to be serviced with the same speed, immediately – even if their problems happen at the same time.  The increase in productivity resulting from less downtime will also serve to improve your staff’s morale.
  • Training: Unless technology is your industry how can you be expected to stay on top of your industry trends and the latest technology?
  • Increased Accuracy of Reporting: With an outsourced IT department you will receive unbiased reports about your network and productivity.  Without the need to protect a poor decision made by another employee (Did your VP really think it was a good idea to buy a bunch of computers on Craig’s List sight unseen?) you can receive a more accurate site survey.
  • Innovation: If you are presently stuck in the break/fix cycle when do you have the opportunity to look at the “big picture?” The best manager I ever had used to tell us “you don’t know what you don’t know.”  If you haven’t had an outside company look at your business you might not be seeing the opportunities for technology to enhance your services.

For many small and midsize companies the decision to outsource your IT doesn’t mean letting your “IT guy” go – it means letting your managers stop wearing an IT hat when an issue arises. So, what are you waiting for? I know this great company in the DC metro area… give us a call.

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SignEasy

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

For some reason if it has “easy” in the name I am skeptical.  Easy recipes are almost always a can of cream of something soup and a chicken breast.  Easy weight loss programs don’t work.  The new and improved easy bake oven doesn’t work any better than the old one, just in case you were wondering.

So when I ran across an app recently called Sign Easy I was more than a little skeptical.  Technology that claims to be easy makes me raise an eyebrow.  Easy easy? Or easy compared to how difficult we make everything these days in an effort to make things easy?

SignEasy is an iOS and Android application that allows you to import a document from DropBox, Evernote or an email and sign it digitally!  You store your signature and your initials in the application (unless you’d prefer not to) and then you just drag and drop them anywhere they are required.  The signed document is saved as a PDF within the app and emailed to you.

Need more than one signature?  There is an option to have multiple signatures.  If you are meeting with a client and want to be able to finish everything up right then and there you can have a document available for their review already imported, sign it and email a copy to the both of you.

And the best part – it really is easy.  You drag and drop your signatures, initials and the date. So, is it too good to be true?

Nope.  It’s just not free.  The download is free.  The first three documents you sign and save are free.  After that it is $1.99 for 5 documents or $9.99 for unlimited documents.  If you sign and send documents frequently it pays for itself in no time.

In almost every industry and even in our personal lives there are occasions that require us to negotiate.  Instead of trading phone calls we exchange zillions of emails.  Eventually the final email in a lengthy negotiation comes along.  You know that it is the last one before you even read it.  It has an attachment.  ”Please sign this and return it at your earliest convenience.”

Great.  You can sign a lease, close a business deal, sign your kids up for camp or buy a car from anywhere.  And then in the final hour when you are so ready to just be finished you need to run home or back to the office, print a document, sign it, scan it and return it.  Are you kidding?

Take a look.  How could this app save you a few minutes?  Your time is valuable.

 

 

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MySpace is Brand New! Again.

Posted on September 29, 2012 by Kelly Doherty

Social media isn’t going away.  And neither is MySpace.

Are you waiting for the punchline?

I was when I first ran across a news article touting the impending redesign of the struggling social networking service. It’s easy to joke about MySpace.  Maybe you’re making plans for a night in and your friend says “Let’s grab a few beers and watch the finale of The Sopranos!” An appropriate response might be “Yeah, sure and then we can hang on out on MySpace and chat with our friends.” MySpace is old news. Right? Maybe not.

It was less than ten years ago that MySpace was founded.  Believe it or not in 2006 MySpace had more traffic than Google!  7 years is a lifetime when talking technology and quite possibly two lifetimes when talking internet traffic.  In April of 2008 Facebook surpassed MySpace in the popularity contest that is the internet.

If you’re a tech minded person interested in social media and the impact it has had on everything from the way we interact with our friends to the way we read the news you probably saw the 2011 Oscar winner The Social Network. If you haven’t you should.

In Oscar Wilde’s 1889 essay The Decay of Lying he asserts that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.”  I suspect Justin Timberlake would agree.  Timberlake was fantastic as Northern Virginia native, co-founder of Napster and the first president of Facebook, Sean Parker, in The Social Network.  Will he be equally fantastic as he takes on the role as co-owner of MySpace?

Numerous online media sources say Timberlake will have a “major role” in the development of the new MySpace.  I’ll be checking it out.  I’m woefully out of touch with new music and maybe the revamped MySpace will help me keep my finger on the pulse.

How about you?  Will you be logging in? In case you are already trying to remember your MySpace password from eons ago, you won’t need it.  You can just log in with Facebook.  How’s that for accepting your position as a runner-up?

 

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