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3 Quick Windows 10 Features You Might Not Know About

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We’re showing Windows 10 users some love in our latest video on Windows 10 tips and tricks! We’ve put together a quick guide to turning any article into a PDF, how to use window snapping and how to automatically create step-by-step guides with a little-known Windows application that’s on your computer right now! Let us know what programs, applications or OS you’d like a deeper insight into for future videos.

For over 15 years eStorm Australia has been partnering with business, education and government as their trusted Managed IT Services provider, IT Support and single source supplier. Our team of specialists deliver superior on-site and remote services tailored to suit your specific requirements.

Call us today on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected].

Organising and Automating Your Outlook Calendar

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Research shows that we interpret colour far more quickly and effectively than rows and columns of data and information. In our new video we show you how to create colour coded categories in Microsoft Outlook for specific events, appointments and contacts. We then cover how to automate the entire calendar organisation process in Outlook so you can set it and forget it while continuing to keep your calendar organised. You can learn more about our Microsoft Office 365 support, migration and solutions.

For over 15 years eStorm Australia has been partnering with business, education and government as their trusted Managed IT Services provider and single source supplier. Our team of specialists deliver superior on-site and remote services tailored to suit your specific requirements.

Call us today on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected].

Get more out of Outlook with these simple tips

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We all spend countless hours in Outlook every day writing (sometimes dodging) and replying to emails. And sure, we know how to send and reply to emails, attach documents and CC people into email threads — but there’s so much more we could be doing in Outlook to make our lives easier. So in this video we put together a few simple tips and tricks to improve your productivity with Outlook.

You can also learn more about our Office 365 support, migration and services for business and enterprise.

For over 15 years eStorm Australia has been partnering with business, education and government as their trusted Managed IT Services provider and single source supplier. Our team of specialists deliver superior on-site and remote services tailored to suit your specific requirements.

Call us today on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected].

Australian Government Security Audit Shows Why Your Business Needs A Password Manager

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Released earlier this week by the state’s auditor general, a Western Australian government security audit revealed that 26% of its officials had incredibly weak and easily guessable passwords. More than 5,000  of the 234,000 passwords across 17 government agencies included the word “password”.

Western Australian Government Password Audit

This included 1,464 people using “Password123”, 812 using “password1” and 176 using “abcd1234”. Close to 13,000 people used different variations of the season and date, with a staggering 7,000 including “123”.

While this can seem ridiculous and in some cases even funny, there were very serious potential outcomes as a result of this. The report found that a significant amount of these accounts are used to access very important information, as well as vital government systems. One such case showed that auditors were able to gain access to a government agency’s network with full administrative privileges by guessing the password “Summer123.”

The report found that, in most agencies, no help or support was given to users to store their information securely. As a result, some employees were storing passwords in Word documents and spreadsheets.

It’s understandable why people attempt to simplify their workplace access by using a simple or singular password – the average enterprise uses 91 services (Skype, Slack, OneDrive, Social channels, CRM, Marketing software, Sales automation, Website etc.). However, a staggering 81% of breaches are caused by weak or reused passwords. With more accounts than you can possibly recall, how are you supposed to remember strong, unique passwords for all of them? The simple answer is you can’t – but a password manager can.

What is a Password Manager?

A password manager is an application that creates, remembers and automatically fills in your passwords for you. Log in to an account one time, or manually add log in information to your password manager, and it will automatically store your username and password. All your passwords are stored in an encrypted format, which means they’re safe and protected. A password manager provides fast, secure and easy access to all your stored passwords with the help of a single master password.

A password manager can be incredibly beneficial for any business that wants to boost security, simplify the onboarding and offboarding process, as well as help employees manager their passwords more effectively.

Why is this important?

Simple Onboarding and Offboarding

A simple onboarding and offboarding process helps your organisation save time and money. Likewise, when an employee leaves your company, it is important that your password manager has the ability to revoke their access to work related passwords and data. According to a SailPoint Market Report, more than 2 in 5 employees reported have access to a variety of corporate accounts after leaving their last job.

The report concluded that an efficient onboarding and offboarding process helps prevent some of the internal security risks with provisioning and application usage.

Passwords are essential

No one needs to be told that passwords are important – we all know this. But it’s important to remember that your password is your first line of defence. Put simply, no matter what service it is that you’re using, the security is often times only as good as the password that you’ve set.

Making a very strong password is often complicated. A password manager really takes a lot of the pain out of the process and makes an often complicated and time consuming process simple and easy. A password manager does this by creating and remembering a new, strong and complex password for you that is much stronger than anyone could come up with.

Unique

Creating a solid, complex and secure password is great – but if it’s not unique it’s pointless, which is so often overlooked.

A site or application’s security is only as good as the password you use, which means a site’s security could be worse than your password! If you’re using the same strong password across multiple sites, accounts and applications, then those sites and services with inadequate security could endanger your information in places that are serious about security.

Account volume

Lets face it – you have more accounts than your team can handle, we all do. The average organisation uses 91 services, which means that even if you created unique passwords for all of them, you’d never be able to remember them all.

One study found that people had an average of 37 password reset emails in their inboxes. 37 times someone forgot their password. 37 times someone had to undergo the tedious reset password process and create a brand new unique password.

With an enterprise level password manager, the need to reset passwords is completely removed. Likewise, when one person forgets the password, they aren’t resetting an account password that everyone else then needs to update.

Simplicity

Password managers significantly increase your security while also simplifying your life… how often does that happen!?

A password manager requires you to remember a single password – that’s it – then it does the rest. No more trying to remember if it was a capital letter in this password, or a 3 instead of a capital E – and best of all, no more password resets!

 

You can learn more about why your business needs a password manager, how to create a strong password or how to protect yourself against email threats.

 

For over 15 years eStorm Australia has been partnering with business, education and government as their trusted Managed IT Services provider and single source supplier. Our team of specialists deliver superior on-site and remote services tailored to suit your specific requirements.

Call us today on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected].

 

News story source: The Washington Post

 

5 Mac Tricks You’ll Actually Use Everyday!

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The Service Centre is a series that highlights the best Apple tips and tricks that you can start using right now! As a proud member of the Apple Consultant Network, as well as being one of the most accomplished Apple IT Services firms in Australia, a great deal of our time is spent helping organisations integrate Apple Services into their business IT solutions. This is why we want to help you get the most out of your Mac by showcasing some of the best features you might not know about. Learn more about how we introduce Apple into businesses in a strategic and cost-effective way.

In this episode of The Service Centre, we showcase 5 super simple and easy to use tricks that you can use every day that will boost productivity.

For over 15 years eStorm Australia has been partnering with business, education and government as their trusted Managed IT Services provider and single source supplier. Our team of specialists deliver superior on-site and remote services tailored to suit your specific requirements.

Call us today on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected].

The Best Features In macOS’ Preview App

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In this series of Apple Tech Tip videos, we want to show you some of the best features you might be unaware of that Mac has to offer so you can get more out of your Mac. As a proud member of the Apple Consultant Network, as well as being one of the most accomplished Apple IT Services firms in Australia, a great deal of our time is spent helping organisations integrate Apple Services into their business IT solutions. Here you can learn more about how we introduce Apple into businesses in a strategic and cost-effective way.

In this episode we delve into the power of the macOS Preview App where you can edit photos, remove backgrounds, sign documents and so much more!

For over 15 years eStorm Australia has been partnering with business, education and government as their trusted Managed IT Services provider and single source supplier. Our team of specialists deliver superior on-site and remote services tailored to suit your specific requirements.

Call us today on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected].

Why your business needs a Password Manager

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Trying to remember your password for every website, portal, tool and piece of software is borderline impossible. Some organisations like to solve this problem by using a very simple and memorable password, variations of the same password, or worse – the exact same password for everything! That’s just asking for trouble.

Simple and memorable passwords are very easy for hackers to gain access to with a staggering 81% of breaches caused by weak or reused passwords. Even using a very strong password, but used across many sites and logins, means a single breach on one site or platform can compromise your information everywhere else. That’s where a password manager comes in.

What is a Password Manager?

The average enterprise uses 91 services! Skype, Slack, OneDrive, Dropbox, Social media channels, CRM, marketing software, sales automation, online store, website, mail client – the list goes on and on. With more accounts than you can possibly recall, how are you supposed to remember strong, unique passwords for all of them? The simple answer is you can’t – but a password manager can.

A password manager is an application that creates, remembers and automatically fills in your passwords for you. Log in to an account one time, or manually add log in information to your password manager, and it will automatically store your username and password. All your passwords are stored in an encrypted format, which means they’re safe and protected. A password manager provides fast, secure and easy access to all your stored passwords with the help of a single master password.

A password manager can be incredibly beneficial for any business that wants to boost security, simplify the onboarding and offboarding process, as well as help employees manager their passwords more effectively.

eStorm Australia Password Manager

Why is this important?

Passwords are essential

No one needs to be told that passwords are important – we all know this. But it’s important to remember that your password is your first line of defence. Put simply, no matter what service it is that you’re using, the security is often times only as good as the password that you’ve set.

Making a very strong password is often complicated. A password manager really takes a lot of the pain out of the process and makes an often complicated and time consuming process simple and easy. A password manager does this by creating and remembering a new, strong and complex password for you that is much stronger than anyone could come up with.

Unique

Creating a solid, complex and secure password is great – but if it’s not unique it’s pointless, which is so often overlooked.

A site or application’s security is only as good as the password you use, which means a site’s security could be worse than your password! If you’re using the same strong password across multiple sites, accounts and applications, then those sites and services with inadequate security could endanger your information in places that are serious about security.

Account volume

Lets face it – you have more accounts than your team can handle, we all do. The average organisation uses 91 services, which means that even if you created unique passwords for all of them, you’d never be able to remember them all.

One study found that people had an average of 37 password reset emails in their inboxes. 37 times someone forgot their password. 37 times someone had to undergo the tedious reset password process and create a brand new unique password.

With an enterprise level password manager, the need to reset passwords is completely removed. Likewise, when one person forgets the password, they aren’t resetting an account password that everyone else then needs to update.

Simplicity

Password managers significantly increase your security while also simplifying your life… how often does that happen!?

A password manager requires you to remember a single password – that’s it – then it does the rest. No more trying to remember if it was a capital letter in this password, or a 3 instead of a capital E – and best of all, no more password resets!

What makes a great Password Manager?

Usability

A password manager, particularly in a business context, isn’t effective if no one is using it. In order to ensure employees adopt the use of a password manager, it must be intuitive and easy to use.

A great password manager is:

Efficient: must be able to be used to complete tasks quickly and easily

Effective: should help users achieve specific goals

Engaging: the UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience) should be pleasant and satisfying to use

Easy to learn: simple enough to be picked up and easily understood without deliberate effort

Error tolerant: should be designed to prevent errors and help users recover from errors that do occur\

Likewise, a password manager in a business environment must be usable cross platform and compatible with different operating systems and devices.

Simple Onboarding and Offboarding

A simple onboarding and offboarding process helps your organisation save time and money.

Likewise, when an employee leaves your company, it is important that your password manager has the ability to revoke their access to work related passwords and data. According to a SailPoint Market Report, more than 2 in 5 employees reported have access to a variety of corporate accounts after leaving their last job.

The report concluded that an efficient onboarding and offboarding process helps prevent some of the internal security risks with provisioning and application usage.

Administrative Controls & Monitoring

Your password manager should offer tools that enable you to oversee your employees’ use of the program. This means monitoring features such as dashboards, delegated administration, team sharing, role-based permissions, analytics and auditing.

These tools should enable you to enforce all organisational password policies and aid in regulatory compliance. It is however important to note that your password manager’s monitoring tools should not compromise the privacy of your employees.

Password Sharing

Password sharing is a very standard office operation. However, the methods via which employees use to share those passwords, such as email and internal chat programs, are not safe from hackers.

An enterprise level password manager enables employees to share passwords in a secure, convenient and efficient way. Administrative tools should allow you to share passwords on a temporary basis or with full access.

Likewise, these shared credentials should update automatically so that all other team members continue their access.

Security

Arguably the most important aspect of your password manager. The current recommended method of encryption for password protection is Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with a 256-bit key length. This method has been deemed secure enough to protect the United States Government’s most highly classified data.

Be sure to utilise a password manager which uses a zero-knowledge protocol in its security architecture. This allows the employee full, exclusive control over the encryption and decryption of their data via a Master Password. This Master Password should never be stored on the password manager’s server or anywhere in the company’s network.

Additionally, your password manager should alert you and all employees in the event a data breach occurs.

If you’d like to find out how we can help your business, just ask us about eStorm Secure any time on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected]

You can learn more about how to make a great password or how to protect yourself against email threats.

 

For over 15 years eStorm Australia has been partnering with business, education and government as their trusted Managed IT Services provider and single source supplier. Our team of specialists deliver superior on-site and remote services tailored to suit your specific requirements.

Call us today on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected].

How to Create an IT Strategy

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It goes without saying that IT (Information Technology) is a vital part of any organisation. Technologies change over night, securing the appropriate funding can be challenging, not to mention the potential conflicts in organisational priorities. However, it is absolutely essential that organisations have a roadmap in the form of an efficient and effective plan for the future. As Crawford Greenewalt, former president of the DuPont Company, once said, “Every moment spent planning saves three or four in execution.” A robust and thorough IT strategic plan not only sees time saved in the execution phase, but can result in considerably higher returns on investment.

According to Architecture and Governance Magazine, some Fortune 500 companies and government agencies have validated returns on investment as high as 700% as a result of their investment in IT strategic planning.

What is an IT strategic plan?

IT strategic plans are most commonly 3 – 5 year proposals that consist of organisational and project goals, objectives and overall guiding principles. IT strategic plans can range from incredibly specific, in which precise time frames, costs and resources are detailed, to more generalised plans, which leaves it open to department and senior managers to establish the project goals and objectives. Effective strategic plans focus your resources, time and money by prioritising the projects that generate the most significant benefits for the organisation.

Oftentimes the process undertaken to develop a strategic IT plan is just as important as the plan itself. The IT strategic plan should complement the strategies, goals and objectives of other divisions within the organisation. Involving the other units of the organisation early in the process can help to shape and improve the overall objectives through gaining a better understanding of what is necessary for all involved. This approach can be vital in ensuring the plan receives the appropriate funding and resources.

For example, marketing and sales could be managing a significant increase in the amount of customer data. IT could begin planning for how the organisation will handle that increase through expanding on-premise data storage, moving to the cloud or upgrading the capabilities of the data analytics team. If these data storage and analysis resources are inadequate, then steps can be taken to shore them up internally or to locate an outside IT consultant that these tasks can be outsourced to.

An IT strategy would address these gaps and highlight the need for the organisation to build out the supply of skills and infrastructure necessary to meet the demands of multiple divisions of the organisation.

It is important that IT not only think of it’s strategy in terms of technological solutions, but rather think in terms of business goals and opportunities.

A number of organisations use the services of IT consultants to perform the process of creating an IT plan to help provide objectivity and dedicated resources for the creation of a strategy.

IT Strategic Planning Process

IT strategy creation

In order to develop an efficient and effective plan, project management best practices must be followed. This entails the creation of a project charter, developing and following a detailed project plan, as well as the formation of a project team with a project manager to oversee and steer the entire process. In the beginning stages of the formation of the project team, the definition of roles and responsibilities is vital. Likewise, the project team should consist of representatives from all major organisational departments.

Step 1. Discovery

Information and feedback is gathered from all relevant stakeholders. This includes hardware and software inventories, documentation for telecommunications services, network topology diagrams, organisational charts, policies and procedures, disaster recovery and continuity of operations plans, as well as all other relevant documentation.

Additional information is gathered through internal and external stakeholder surveys, interviews and focus groups with the goal of assessing how current IT is performing, what challenges people face and what opportunities are available.

Step 2. Analysis

Once all relevant documentation and information is collated, an analysis of the data is performed. This attempts to look at best practices and gap analysis in order to understand current IT deficiencies with the goal of developing recommendations based on the findings.

During this phase it is vital the project team are consulted to ensure these initial findings are in alignment and on target. It is likely however that additional research will be required.

Analysis and Documentation

Step 3. Documentation

Goals and objectives are formed, along with overarching guiding principles in order to aid the writing of the strategy. The guiding principles in particular help guide and shape the overall decision-making, particularly when issues arise that are not part of the goals and objectives.

For example, the strategy might include that IT will take a cloud-first approach when purchasing new technologies and software. The project team then need to provide adequate feedback within this documentation phase to aid the prioritisation of strategic initiatives and plan objectives. This includes the assurance that funding, time frames and resources are not only realistic but achievable for the project.

Following this, a detailed strategy is written where feedback is obtained from the project group and relevant stakeholders.

Step 4. Review

The feedback is used to revise and finalise the plan. The project manager then presents the plan to senior management, IT staff and other relevant stakeholders, following which the strategy is usually published and distributed internally.

Following the completion of the plan, the objectives and initiatives are implemented within the specified time line and budget. As the implementation of the IT strategy takes place over the 3-5 years of the plan, it’s vital that progress and performance are monitored and tracked. More often than not, the plan will be revised and adjusted during this time as a good plan is always under construction. External, and unpredictable, factors such as emerging and disruptive technologies, the economy and legislative change can impact and alter the original implementation.

You can learn more about eStorm’s IT consultancy and how you can get the most out of your IT environment.

eStorm Australia is an IT managed service provider headquartered in Brisbane. We partner with your business and provide IT solutions and services that suit your specific requirements. Our solutions include a variety of services that are critical to overall business success and competitive advantage.

If you need any information, or to find out exactly how we can help your business – contact us anytime on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected].

What is Microsoft Azure and how does it work?

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What is Microsoft Azure?

Azure, or MS Azure, is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. Azure is an on demand data centre in the cloud that has the ability to scale up or down with your business as and when you need it (only pay for what you use at the time you use it) and it’s available whenever you need it.

This can be achieved in the cloud or as a hybrid solution. Your Azure environment can be customised to functions as all, or a combination of, your servers, backup, disaster recovery, website platforms, dev test sites and storage among other things.

Azure provides a greater level of flexibility by easily integrating with on-premise servers and data centres or as a standalone solution. It is utilised by 66% of Fortune 500 companies as it is fast becoming one of the largest cloud platforms in the world, as well as being utilised to help organisations meet business challenges, move faster and achieve more while saving money.

One of the best things about Azure is the ability to utilise it in a number of ways, including on-premise, hybrid or full cloud.

What is Microsoft Azure eStorm Australia Managed IT Services

Learn more about how you can benefit from using Microsoft Azure.

How does Microsoft Azure work?

Azure uses a technology known as virtualisation. This separates the coupling between a computer’s CPU and it’s operating system using an abstraction layer called a Hypervisor. A Hypervisor (virtual machine monitor) emulates all the functions of a computer and its CPU in a virtual machine with the ability to run multiple virtual machines at the same time. Each virtual machine, or VM, can run any compatible operating system (OS).

Azure takes this virtualisation technology and repeats it on a large scale in Microsoft data centres throughout the world. Each data centre has multiple racks filled with servers which all include Hypervisors to run multiple VMs. A network switch then provides connectivity to the servers.

One server in each rack runs a special piece of software called a Fabric Control. Each Fabric Controller is connected to another piece of software called the Orchestrator. This is responsible for managing everything that happens in Azure, including responding to user requests. Users make requests using Orchestrator’s web API, which can be called by many tools such as the user interface of the Azure Portal. When a user makes a request to create a VM, the Orchestrator packages everything that’s needed, picks the best server rack and then sends the package and request to the Fabric Controller. Once the Fabric Controller has created the VM, the user can connect to it.

Microsoft Azure makes it easy for developers and IT professionals to build, deploy and manage applications and services quickly and easily.

How Microsoft Azure Works eStorm Australia Managed IT Services

 

 

eStorm Australia is an IT managed service provider headquartered in Brisbane. We partner with your business and provide IT solutions and services that suit your specific requirements. Our solutions include a variety of services that are critical to overall business success and competitive advantage.

If you need any information, or to find out exactly how we can help your business – contact us anytime on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected].

5 Useful Mac Tips You’re Probably Not Using

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As a proud member of the Apple Consultant Network, as well as being one of the most accomplished Apple IT Services firms in Australia, a great deal of our time is spent helping organisations integrate Apple Services into their business IT solutions. Here you can learn more about how we introduce Apple into businesses in a strategic and cost-effective way.

We want you to get the most out of your hardware and software, so we put together 5 interesting Mac features you might not know about that could be improving your Mac use.

 

 

eStorm Australia is an IT managed service provider headquartered in Brisbane. We partner with your business and provide IT solutions and services that suit your specific requirements. Our solutions include a variety of services that are critical to overall business success and competitive advantage.

If you need any information, or to find out exactly how we can help your business – contact us anytime on (07) 3120 0640 or email us at [email protected]. If you are located outside of Brisbane: Sydney: (02) 9188 5148 – Melbourne: (03) 9088 6431.

In need of our other IT support and managed services? We specialise in Managed Cloud Services, IT Support Services, Managed Network Services, Business Telephony, Hardware and Software Procurement and Education Services.