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Blog posts tagged mobile
Friday Donut tip: secure remote working
May 04, 2012
Every Friday we bring you a great business IT tip. From nuggets that make repetitive tasks easier to easy ways to banish tech annoyances, we’re here to help.
If there’s something you’d like our help with, send an email to info@itdonut.co.uk or just leave a comment on this post. We’ll try and cover it in a future IT Donut tip.
Safer remote working
As remote working becomes more common, businesses are having to cope with some new security risks. There’s the possibility of laptop theft, of course, and using insecure wireless connections means anyone could be eavesdropping on your data.
And what if your laptop gets rained on, or you leave it in a taxi by accident? You won’t just lose your laptop, but you’ll lose all the data on it too – and that could be a big blow to your business.
To avoid this happening, whenever possible, don’t save important documents and data to your laptop. If your business has a network server, you should have space on there to save everything. If you don’t have a network drive available on your computer, ask your IT supplier to set one up and put a shortcut on your desktop so you can find it easily.
Of course, it’s not always possible to save to a network server. If you’re not in the office, you need to be connected remotely to your company network so you can access your resources. If you’re working without a connection, save files to your laptop and make sure you copy them to the server once you’re back online.
Use the power of the cloud
If your company doesn’t have its own network server, you can achieve a similar effect using cloud storage. Services like Dropbox and Box let you create a special folder on your computer. Anything you save in there automatically gets copied to a server on the internet too. So if you lose your laptop, you don’t lose your data.
Finally, here’s one last tip for laptop workers: if you’re stepping away from your computer, make sure you lock it. In Microsoft Windows, just hold the Windows key and tap L. That’ll make sure nobody can meddle with it while you’re not there.
2012 ultrabooks: lightening the load in your bag?
April 26, 2012
Laptops have been getting better for years. Back around 2002-ish, you were delighted if your laptop could run Microsoft Word without slowing down and lasted over an hour away from mains power.
But nowadays we’re reaching the point where a laptop battery can last a full working day. Even the cheapest laptops can handle common business applications. You’re even slightly less likely to hurt your back when lugging one around.
Ultrabooks for 2012
Although they have got sleeker in recent times, many laptops are still chunky, uninspiring to work with and heavy to carry. Choosing one can be tricky, because often you’re faced with a series of compromises.
If you want lightness, you have to sacrifice power. If you want a keyboard you can type on with ease, you’re going to have to find a bit more space in your bag.
But now we’re faced with what some think is a fundamental change to the world of laptops. In 2012, manufacturers are racing to release ultrabooks. These super-thin laptops are designed to end those compromises.
The idea of an ultrabook is to give you all the power you need in a small, stylish shell. You should get enough battery power to work all day and a decent screen and keyboard so using your laptop for hours at a time isn’t a painful experience.
But are 2012’s ultrabooks right for you?
As more ultrabooks appear on the market, we’re starting to see how well they live up to what they promise.
Take the new Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook (pictured). It has garnered excellent reviews (four-and-a-half stars from PC Advisor, and PC Pro’s recommended status) and has all the key characteristics you’d expect from an ultrabook:
- It’s stylish and well-built. Ultrabook manufacturers put a lot of effort into making the machines look sleek and feel solid to use. Expect clean lines, little in the way of labels and badges and key components made from metal.
- It’s small and light. Size is everything when it comes to 2012’s ultrabooks. Many are under 2cm thick at their widest point and weigh under 1.5kg – that’s less than half the weight of many workhorse business laptops and thinner than a stack of post-its.
- It uses a solid state hard drive. Solid state storage works like a camera memory card. Unlike normal hard drives, there are no moving parts. This means data can be accessed much faster, making ultrabooks very snappy to use.
- There’s no CD drive. You can’t fit a CD drive into a super-thin laptop and it takes a lot of battery power to spin a CD. So, ultrabooks do away with the CD drive altogether. Does it matter? Well, when was the last time you put a CD in your computer?
- The battery lasts ages. We’re talking four hours plus under heavy use, and over eight hours if you’re not pushing the processor hard. It’s meant to be a mobile computer, so it must have a battery that stays the course.
There’s one other thing that sets ultrabooks apart from more humdrum laptops. And that’s the price. They tend to be more expensive. In general, you’ll pay £900 or more.
Although that may seem steep compared with a bog-standard £500 laptop, when you get your hands on an ultrabook you can see where your money has gone. It takes a lot of engineering effort to fit so many high-spec components into such a small space.
Get ready for lots of 2012 ultrabooks
As there’s no official definition of what constitutes an ultrabook, expect to see plenty in 2012 which don’t tick all these boxes. Indeed, over time, some of those ultrabook features should start trickling down into more standard laptops. And wouldn’t it be great if super-light, super-thin laptops became the norm, rather than the exception?
A mobile app to boost customer loyalty
January 09, 2012
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Mobile loyalty card app Loyalli |
I have six different loyalty cards in my wallet at the moment. Cafes, restaurants, bars, shops ... they all delight in letting you collect stamps towards a free gift. But the cards are a pain to carry and it can be a struggle to find the right one when you need it.
As problems go you’re not going to lose any sleep over it. But for independent retailers looking to build repeat business, loyalty cards can be hit and miss. I’ve often wondered how many of the cards they give out ever get redeemed.
Does the internet reduce or increase loyalty?
One of the strange things about technology is that while it gives businesses new channels through which to reach customers (email, social media, smart phone apps, etc), it simultaneously places a whole world of options in front of those customers. For instance, comparing prices from different retailers on the internet is a piece of cake.
So technology doesn’t always make it easy to build customer loyalty. I’d argue that in many cases it has the opposite effect, by encouraging people to shop around for everything.
All your loyalty cards in one place
Back in the physical world, independent outlets of all kinds are struggling to weather the ongoing economic storm. In this environment it’s interesting to see the launch of a new service designed to boost customer loyalty.
In true internet company fashion, it’s called Loyalli (I guess the domain name loyally.com was unavailable) and it’s a smart phone app which lets customers collect loyalty stamps without having to carry around physical cards. Loyalli is free for customers and retailers.
The idea is that when customers buy something from your restaurant, cafe or whatever, you give them a QR code to scan using their smart phone. (QR codes are like barcodes: you photograph them with your phone, then an app decodes them. Learn more about QR codes here.)
The QR code is unique to your business, so the app knows the customer has bought something from you. When a customer scans the code, the app uses the phone’s location features to check they’re actually in your shop (apparently this is just one of several anti-fraud measures) and then puts a virtual stamp on their virtual loyalty card.
When the customer has collected enough stamps, they just scan the QR code again to claim their free coffee, drink, meal or other reward. That also resets their virtual stamp card so they can carry on collecting.
Can it replace tatty cardboard?
With around 120 UK businesses signed up to Loyalli so far, it’s still early days for the service. And a quick search online reveals a number of competitors, like OneGratis (which doesn’t appear to have as many UK businesses signed up).
However, the limited number of companies using Loyalli may not matter. After all, if you simply want to use it to give your customers another way to collect loyalty stamps, perhaps it’s irrelevant how many other companies are using the service.
Having said that, Loyalli isn’t going to replace traditional loyalty cards any time soon. For one thing, not everyone has a smart phone. And even if all your customers do, you can bet they don’t all know how QR codes work – in a recent blog post on Marketing Donut, one expert revealed only 34% of people know what QR codes are used for.
That’s not to say that Loyalli won’t be a useful tool for your business. You just have to see it as another weapon in the fight for repeat business, rather than a miracle cure that’ll keep your customers coming back over and over again.
You can learn more about Loyalli at Loyalli.com.
It's time to loosen up your business IT
November 11, 2011
Put your feet up and relax about your business IT (Image: Cristian Borquez on Flickr)
There's nothing wrong with being risk averse, and there's nothing wrong with not wanting your staff to do silly things or waste time with their company computers.
Those are the - perfectly logical reasons - why many businesses lock down their systems tightly. They want to stop employees opening the wrong kinds of files, installing dodgy software or accessing social networks.
Fine. But as someone who's fairly IT literate, I've always found locked-down PCs highly offputting. By and large, I know what I'm doing and I know what I need to do my job. I just want the IT department to let me get on with it.
Young workers want more flexibility
A recent piece of research has got me wondering whether this might be a growing sentiment. The 2011 Cisco Connected World Technology Report suggests that young workers (by which it means students and professionals under 30) take many factors into account when deciding where they want to work.
It's not all about the salary - the internet, flexibility and social networks can all make a difference. For instance:
- More than half of students either wouldn't accept a job offer from a company that banned access to social media, or would find a way to circumvent the ban.
- One in four employees say that not being able to work remotely and flexibly would influence their job decisions - they might leave a job sooner, for instance.
- Two out of five people would opt for a lower paying job over a higher paying one, if it offered more flexibility over use of IT and social media, and more mobility.
The overall impression is that younger workers want more choice over what IT they use and how they use it at work.
They want more flexibility in where and when they work. And they want to be allowed to use social networks because they believe services like Facebook and Twitter are key communication tools.
Is it time to loosen up your IT?
I can almost hear the tuts from IT managers at the idea of loosening restrictions, allowing people to use their own devices and turning off web blocking software.
But here's the thing: it's happening already, whether you like it or not. If you've blocked Facebook on your work computers, your employees will just be accessing it on their phones.
Then you've got mobile devices. You might think you've banned staff using their own mobile gadgets for work. But what's to stop them loading documents onto their iPad to review on the train, or connecting a smart phone to the company Wi-Fi?
Times are changing for office IT
Times are changing. The so-called 'millennials' - the next generation of workers - have grown up using IT and computers their entire lives. We don't need to teach them how to use it at work, because they already know.
Maybe, just maybe, if we open systems up and give people more freedom to use the tools and devices they want, they'll be able to do better work.
Should you bring your iPad to work?
September 15, 2011
You can play solitaire on your iPad too... (Image: bark on Flickr.)
It’s impossible to deny that the iPad has been a real sales success. Apple sold 9.25m of them in the last quarter alone. It might only be a matter of time before iPads become another piece of equipment that people bring to work – just like their mobile phone.
But is there a place for the iPad in your company?
Business uses for the iPad
The iPad’s usefulness as a business tool has been questioned, not least on this very blog! But for many, it’s proving to be a revolutionary device. It’s easy to hold, easy to transport and easy to use.
It uses the same operating system and interface as the iPhone, and doesn’t bother with conventional input devices like a mouse or keyboard. You just tap, swipe and drag your fingers on the screen.
It’s down to the apps
Part of the iPad’s success is certainly down to the wide availability of apps. You can download nearly 100,000 of them, covering every category from entertainment and media to productivity and business.
It’s these apps that really enable you to make productive use of an iPad in the workplace. Here are some specific scenarios where you might want to consider using an iPad:
- For presentations. The iPad is a great tool for showing and sharing presentations – it’s portable, so you can just pull it out of your bag when you need it.
Software like Apple’s Keynote lets you import and edit PowerPoint presentations, and you can even hook it up to a monitor or projector (if you don’t mind buying an adaptor from Apple).
There are also applications available that will let you do ‘virtual presentations’ – so you can show your presentation to people on the internet.
- For working together and communicating. The iPad comes with an email app, and you can add all manner of other tools for audio and videoconferencing.
There’s a built-in calendar and address book, so it’s a good replacement for a paper planner – and the larger screen means it’s easier to read than your mobile phone.
You can also choose from a range of apps to manage your tasks, monitor projects, share files, read and post items in social networks and more.
- For working in the field. The iPad is lightweight and portable, so it’s a great companion on the road. It has the ability to connect securely to your office network using a virtual private network (VPN) connection.
- For managing your travel. I feel the iPad is unmatched as a travel companion. There are heaps of apps for managing flights and hotel bookings, checking your itinerary and recording expenses. And when you have some time to yourself (or are bored on a long flight), that big screen is perfect for watching movies.
- For doing industry-specific tasks. This depends which industry you’re in, but there are lots of environments in which the iPad can be put to work. For instance, Apple itself has replaced all its in-store product labels with iPads.
You can even use it as a point-of-sale device (like a till). Other companies are using iPads to replace printed manuals, and some schools are using it in place of stacks of books.
There are lots of other ways the iPad can be used for business. Are you considering using one in your company as well? And if your company doesn’t own its own iPads, would you be happy for staff to bring in their own? Leave a comment and let us know.
Mobile website or mobile app: what's the difference?
June 22, 2011
How does your company website look on a mobile phone? With more and more people using the internet on the move, it's important to cater for people who are on mobile phones. If you don't you could be annoying visitors to your site or even missing out on sales.
But there are two main ways to cater for mobile users. You can create a version of your website that's designed for the small screens of mobile handsets. Or you can build a mobile app - a small program that people can download and use on their phone.
To help you understand the difference between the two, we've created this infographic.
(See it full size in a new window.)
Has your business started thinking about how mobile users can access your website? Leave a comment and let us know what you decided to do.
Laura Hampton works for Zabisco. Read the Zabisco blog.
Optimising your business website for mobile phones
June 13, 2011
This is a guest post written by Jonathan Brealey, co-founder of web hosting and reseller hosting company Heart Internet.
An ever-increasing proportion of your website's visitors are coming from mobile phones. For example, in September 2009, just 0.02% of all UK web traffic originated from a mobile device. In January 2011 this figure was a staggering 8.09%, representing a growth of over 4000% (source: www.tecmark.co.uk). With the growing popularity of the iPhone and Android powered phones, this trend is only going to continue.
While you can continue to show your normal website to mobile visitors, you could proactively increase sales and revenue by optimising your website for mobile web browsers.
For example, most websites are built with a full-screen monitor in mind, often with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels or above. However, an iPhone's screen size is much smaller, at 320 x 480 pixels.
Mobile internet users don’t want to navigate a web page full of text, images or videos to find the information they need. Although your existing website is aimed at giving a full and comprehensive picture of your business, a mobile site should deliver immediate access to what matters most when on the go.
Top tips designing your website for mobile phones
- Use mobile website building software such as goMobi for quick set up plus automatic device detection.
- Alternatively, if you want to build it yourself, put the mobile version on a sub-domain (e.g. mobile.websitename.com) and send mobile traffic to that version of the site.
- Your visitors don’t want to scan pages full of information. They want to be presented with what they need as quickly and efficiently as possible. Identify the key content on your site and make that the most prominent on your mobile website.
- A lot of visitors will be accessing websites via a 3G connection, which tends to be slower than the broadband you have at home. With this in mind, keep images to a minimum so pages load quickly.
- Rethink your navigation. Pressing a normal blue text link can be tricky on a phone. Make navigation buttons and links large enough for fingers to press and don’t have too many on one page.
- Limit scrolling to one direction. You can do this by using a single column layout, reducing the amount of scrolling and pinching the user has to do.
- Don’t rely on Flash for any of your content. It will be fine on most devices, but it won't work on the iPhone. As the iPhone is the biggest selling smartphone, lots of your visitors are likely to be using one.
Some good mobile websites
A good way to start is to look at what people have been done before. It can give you an idea of what works and - importantly - what you can improve upon.
Here are some examples of leading businesses with mobile phone optimised versions of their websites:
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What are your favourite mobile websites? And what plans do you have for yours? Leave a comment to let us know.
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