Email Dread – How Does it Strike You?
With workforces distributed across several time zones, there are two major types of “email dread” plaguing teams that span the continent. While their time zones are different, their dread stems from the same thing – overwhelming, cluttered, confusing email overload. Let’s go over the two main types.
AM email dread – This is often the bane of West Coast email existence. When a West Coaster starts his day, typically he is inundated with a barrage of emails, varying in urgency, from his East Coast counterparts. No matter how early he starts his day, he can’t get a leg up on the East Coast. (And yes, West Coasters do attempt to start their day at 4am just to be on the same speed as New York. Few succeed, most fail miserably.). The frustrated West Coaster already feels bogged down before the day’s even begun and spends a good chunk of his morning responding to – or simply reading — East Coast emails.
Endless email stream – This is the East Coaster’s email blight. An East Coaster starts her day at the regular time, and, often hopes to disconnect in the evening. But her counterparts on the West Coast send a continuous stream of email long after her workday is over. There are the urgent emails she’s happy to respond to. But the trivial ones, the ones that make her laptop beep while she’s trying to unwind, can wreck havoc on her planned quiet evening at home.
So what’s the cure? Can West Coasters and East Coasters find some solace in their time zone divide? It’s actually possible. The key is ensuring Outlook is synced properly, so that only the necessary parties are getting updates on new files, messages, contacts, and updates. There’s no need to bog down remote teams with non-essentials, especially the Friday afternoon fridge cleaning reminder.
What is your email dread? Do you have solutions for AM email dread or the endless email stream? Tell us!
Missing Emails, Contacts and Calendar Appointments?
Small businesses looking to sync Outlook have a number of options including an exchange server, a hosted service or a software-based tool. An exchange server is expensive and can be difficult for a small company to maintain. So what are the alternatives? A hosted service seems like a good choice since it’s less expensive and easy to manage, but unexpected issues may come up when going this route.
For example, a bug was recently found in Google Apps’ Sync for Microsoft Outlook—causing a number of emails to float around in Gmail servers instead of being downloaded into Outlook. Apparently, the bug has existed for several months, resulting in users receiving delayed messages. Google launched this application as a free Outlook plug-in, giving users the option to use Microsoft Outlook effectively with Google Apps.
Google recognized the bug on March 12th and users hoped for a quick fix, but the patch wasn’t sent out until last Wednesday (almost two weeks later). When businesses depend on these hosted solutions—what happens when the system goes down? If a company doesn’t have backup, there is no way to access important emails, contact information and calendar appointments. It’s hard to imagine the effect this could have on a business for two weeks!
Suppose a new business call was set up a month ago—you may not remember the exact time and date of the call so you rely on your calendar for a reminder. Losing out on one new business meeting can have a huge impact on a small company.
This is why a reliable syncing solution is needed. With SYNCING.NET, companies don’t have to worry about a system going down. As long as there is an Internet connection, you will have access to email messages, appointments and other necessary information. When using our software, small businesses can be confident that they won’t miss any opportunities.
Worried about Security with Collaborative Info Sharing?
Are you concerned that your business will be the next company to make the headlines for losing confidential information? Data loss has become a real issue for a number of companies that have lost financial documents, confidential information about clients and employees, etc. Collaboration shouldn’t stop, but the safety of such tools is important.
When it comes to security, organizations spend most of their time fighting against external hacks and overlook internal security processes, and more often than not, employees are even greater threats. It might be hard to imagine, but former employees who still have access to systems may leak confidential data. When employees leave, it is up to the company to make sure that their access to information is immediately closed.
SYNCING.NET’s Professional Edition allows for central administration—it is easy to add or remove people, PCs, Windows and Outlook folders to and from networks. When employees leave, they can automatically be removed from any SYNCING.NET collaborative groups, keeping sensitive information such as email, contacts and files safe. Once someone leaves the company, you can put your mind at ease knowing that data being shared within SYNCING.NET groups is safe.
More Productive Working from Home?
Pajamas and slippers seem to be what motivates employees, according to a recent Microsoft survey. The survey found that many people consider themselves more productive when they’re working away from the office (see the article here). Employees in 36 cities nationwide were surveyed and 60% of the 3,600 respondents said they are more efficient when working remotely. Without distractions in the office and not having to commute, they were able to focus more on work tasks.
Just 15% believe their company supports flexible work arrangements. The results also show that only 41% of those surveyed work for companies with established remote-working policies. Why the disconnect between employee and employer? Perhaps employers are concerned about IT headaches with security, how to enable the same level of collaboration among teams, supporting email / contacts / calendar sharing?
Think about that 60% again for a minute. Could this number actually be even higher if employers supported their staff with a workable policy?
Here are three ways SYNCING.NET can help employers solve these problems and capitalize on that 60% mentality:
Does my computer have to be online for synchronization?
Yes, with the new version SYNCING.NET 2.0 you need to be connected to the internet for synchronization! Because of SYNCING.NET uses a peer-to-peer service for synchronization, that means a direct connection between at least two computers, it have to be at least one more computer online to get changes from other participants. (This is not needed if you checked the option SYNCING.NET “Configuration -> Options -> General Settings” “Enable Store and Forward”. To get more information, please look here: Store and Forward)
The computer has also to be online if all participants are connected in the same local network (LAN). The peer-to-peer service is always trying to create the fastest connection between the computers, if this is possible over the local network, the data transfer will not go over the internet.
If you are using the old version SYNCING.NET for Outlook with the LAN mode, you don’t need an internet connection. The change requests will be stored in the local network on a network shared folder. For synchronization there have to be also at least two computers switched on (not online) and one of the both computers have to be the computer where the network shared folder is located.
Hooking into “Social”
Taking a look around the web we now see many areas people like to congregate. While blogs are a favorite stop the social media crowd are visiting some special websites and forcing them into the spotlight nowadays. It remains to be seen just how much one can monetize Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, etc. but what is true is that people enjoy interacting with one another in these virtual social playgrounds. People want to be there, together, and therefore businesses want to be there too.
Unleash the Marketers! In come the snake oil salesman, the sheister, the carpet bagger and the uncreative all whom crowd the social arena along with the good people, businesses and services that really could benefit from one another. Perhaps it has always been this way when business tries to reach customers but the new(er) social media venues seem to bring an old world, carnival feel. Everyone and every business of all qualities are mixed together.
From a marketing perspective you do want to be there to rub shoulders with the crowd BUT from a good neighbor point of view the marketer needs to be there with useful information. Metaphorically speaking, every business and marketer needs to leave the bad hair piece and synthetic leisure suit at home and then come and play on the social networks. Be there to share and have your good deal, useful information or worthwhile service at the ready but enter with your personality first, not your product.
It’s about the connections. It’s networking. It’s fun and works very well when properly performed.
News: More comfort with SYNCING.NET 2.7
June 3, 2009
The new SYNCING.NET version 2.7 is released and offers even more comfort in data synchronization.
Now SYNCING.NET uses NSIS installer for optimization the installation of the program. This is a great advantage for users because there is only one version for all Windows operating systems. This simplifies the installation of SYNCING.NET, especially in a network with different users, where not all members have the same version of Windows on their PC.
Also there are improvements for some dialogues which aid users with creating a new file or Outlook sharing network. Thus, the program offers them extra help with frequently asked questions and problems. In several dialogues there are thematically appropriated links to the FAQ pages of SYNCING.NET. If you have any problems, you get quickly to the right question on FAQS and don’t have to look long for the answer. Technical problems from the old version are of course corrected in Version 2.7. That allows users to install SYNCING.NET on Vista x64 systems without any problems.
Surviving a computer crash with SYNCING.NET Outlook Backup
May 26, 2009
The German software company SYNCING.NET expands its Outlook synchronization edition with a professional backup. All of your Outlook files, the folder “My Documents” and browser favorites can be easily backed up and restored. The intuitive software is easy to use and works in unison with any version of SYNCING.NET Home or Professional Edition.
The program is tailored to meet the needs of different users. Beginning with the initial setup, the user can choose from an easy to understand menu which displays which objects should be secured. Personal settings can be saved in a batch file or as a desktop shortcut. The backup can be executed manually by the user, or automated by defining a start time. Especially beneficial for users who do not regularly work on their PCs is a batch file or desktop shortcut. Therefore, the user can define when to perform a backup without having to again access the main menu.
With SYNCING.NET Outlook Backup, you can save the contents of .pst files, such as E-mails or Calendars, and even the individual Outlook settings of a given user. This can save valuable time during the re-creation of Outlook following a computer crash – the program is quickly returned to the user-defined settings. Additionally, you can save all folders in “My Documents”, browser favorites (e.g. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera) as well as Office correction lists and settings. In fact, the backup software is extended beyond Outlook.
An additional feature enables the user to copy the backed up data to external media. A backup file can be very large due to the number of objects and folders it contains, often exceeding the space of a CD or DVD. SYNCING.NET Outlook Backup offers a split function solution, where the backup file can be divided into several smaller files. The user can then select between pre-defined standard sizes for CDs, DVDs or floppy disks or even create a user-defined capacity.
Computer crashes are often unforeseen and affect the unprepared. With SYNCING.NET Outlook Backup, these problems can be mitigated. The files can be restored with minimal effort and the user can define the data he wants to restore. The non-selected data rest safely on the backup file and wait for the next computer crash.
All my accounts - differences between POP3, IMAP, SMTP and HTTP
February 17, 2009
An E-Mail account should always be maintained. This way you are able to ensure that all messages are clearly placed. A crowded E-Mail account is confusing, unmanageable and slow.
POP3, IMAP, SMTP and HTTP
First we need to know what the individual abbreviations exactly mean, in order to understand how our E-Mail-accounts work:
Beta Version of SYNCING.NET 2.0 is Coming Soon
Subscribe to test the beta version (limited number of beta testers!) that will be released end of November. It’s FREE.
SYNCING.NET v2.0 is the easy and cost-efficient solution to keep your files and Outlook data in sync:
* on all your PCs
* with your friends, colleagues and partners
* anytime and anywhere
Our lightweight plugin works with all Outlook versions beginning with 2000. It just takes 60 seconds to install, that’s it. You don’t have to configure a server or firewalls.
Subscribe to test the beta version that will be released end of November. It’s FREE.
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