26 Aug 2013

Top 5 tips and tricks to get the most out of your new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone

Guest Post by Cherrie de la Cruz

Getting a new phone is great, especially if it is the BlackBerry Z10, but in the formative stages of our relationship with a phone we are missing something. That something is the knowledge of someone who has used the phone for some time and knows all its little shortcuts and tricks.


With that in mind here are 5 tips and tricks to help make your experience on your new BlackBerry 10 smartphone more seamless and enjoyable:
  1. For those who enjoy voice recognition technology, a simple shortcut to the new and improved voice control is to hold down the play/pause button for a few seconds. After all the app would be less useful if you had to swipe around the phone to find it before using it to call someone.  
  2. To master the BlackBerry Hub you must know its secrets. Accessing it is easy enough, just swipe upwards and to the right (no need to worry that is not the tip), but controlling the clutter may cause more problems. The Hub as a feature is fantastic but putting all your messages in one place can lead to a stressful build up so remember you can select multiple messages to mark as read or for deletion by holding your finger on one message for a second or two and then picking the select more option.
  3. Before revealing tip number three I want you to ask yourself: what if the Hub crashes? Now, it is important to say that this is not a big issue but as you know, any kind of technology is prone to some disruption at some point and you do not want to be without your Hub for any lengthy period of time. So, the third tip is that if your Hub crashes all you have to do is swipe down on the screen 5 times in row to restart it and return it back to you, hopefully, fully functional.
  4. Obviously, you will want to link your e-mail accounts to the Hub but when doing so Gmail users should keep the following tip in mind. When you are initially linking up your account, make sure you got into the advanced settings and select Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync rather than the default IMAP setting because ActiveSync has a much faster sync cycle. Trust me, you will be thankful later.
  5. The fifth tip relates to the browser. When you are on a webpage reading the news, it is sometimes annoying that you have to view the whole page with all the images, videos, etc…well, on a phone. This is where the reader feature comes in handy. The reader feature can be accessed by tapping on the menu button in the bottom right of the browser while viewing a webpage. After selection, it will remove all the images from the page and allow you to read the words in an uncluttered and pleasing arrangement. 
So, hopefully these 5 tips will make the phone feel more user friendly and should also help you on your way to becoming a highly respected BlackBerry 10 expert.


15 Aug 2013

Website Security and Data Breaches [Infographic]

There are various threats and risks online. Businesses should know how to protect themselves. There seems to be a shift to more targeted attacks and an increase in strikes on small and medium-sized businesses.

Check out the infographic from Symantec.

Thanks for the link Carolina.

Texting anywhere in the World

Our friend Jamalulail Ismail and his family is currently on his way to Malaysia by road on their motor home. He started out from UK last month and is currently in Montenegro, the 14 country on trip. During their journey, they are using the DeLorme inReach two-way satellite communicator with GPS to keep in touch with friends, family and media.

Untitled

However, I found out that there is a simpler alternative called Text Anywhere which allows you to send and receive text messages or text-only emails through their browser-based application. Like the DeLorme, it works on the Iridium satellite network - so technically you can text anywhere on the globe apart from North Korea and Cuba. The portable unit pairs with compatible Wi-Fi enabled gadgets by creating a wifi hotspot. The Text Anywhere unit (4x4x1.5 in or 10x10x4cm) is powered by 4 AA batteries or via a 12V adaptor.


The unit retails at MSRP: $399 and costs $0.27 per message. The great part is that you do not need to pay an annual subscription fee and the monthly package (with 100 messages) costs only $29.99 per month with a one time $35 activation fee. However, to suspend the service, you have to pay $5 monthly suspension rate (great when you are not travelling). Even with that, it is still cheaper than paying for a annual subscription offered by other services, plus you can use any compatible mobile, laptop or tablet.