Vermont: IT Support for SMBs in Southampton, Portsmouth, Hampshire, Dorset, and West Sussex

Is iCloud useful for Business?

Oliver — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:00:38 +0000

What is iCloud?

iCloud is a hosted storage service that works by storing your music, ebooks, documents, apps, photos, contacts, calendar entries and email and synchronising them all to multiple computers and mobile devices. To enable this service you need an Apple ID (the same one as your iTunes account for example).

For

Once all the devices and computers are connected; any changes are simply updated immediately. If you buy a song or take a picture on one device, it instantly synchronises to all your other devices, without wires. You will need a free me.com email address which can be used to keep your contacts, email and calendar in sync.

Against

Unfortunately there is no professional accounting, invoicing, customer relationship management, ,project, help-desk and business planning software available on the iCloud. And it only works with Apple’s own applications (iTunes, iPages, iPhoto,) and apple mobile devices (iPhone and iPads). No good if you own an Android, Blackberry or Windows phone or tablet!

The other major blocker for business is that you have to sign up for a .me account and you can’t transfer your own domain onto it.

If you want to synchronise documents, you have to purchase iPages for both your mac computer and mobile Apple device.

The Conclusion

Considering the amount of people who use Apple products in the workplace, iCloud is likely to be an attractive offer, however until it can encompass real business applications and integrate with a company’s actual email domain, there are better options out there. iCloud will probably be taken up by the consumer rather than a business.

We are recruiting: Marketing Professional Role

Oliver — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:20:08 +0000

Exciting new marketing role at Vermont. This is the first time in 5 years that Vermont have recruited for such a position and marketing has changed a lot since then (think Facebook and linked in). Please contact us if you are interested and have the skills……

Vodafone One Net Express

Oliver — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:00:43 +0000

Vermont are now offering the Vodafone One Net Express solution to SMB businesses. Take a look at this web page and please let us know if it is of interest.

Techie websites that keep us up to date

Oliver — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:10:40 +0000

Keeping abreast of the latest and greatest is one of our jobs that we do here. There are lots of sites that we read regularly to keep upto date and I thought I would share with you some of the sites so you can see for yourself what we trawl through to bring you interesting content (well we think it is!).

www.tecca.com

http://mashable.com/business/

http://www.techradar.com/

http://www.zdnet.com/news

Free Google CRM – Insightly

Oliver — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:39:08 +0000

I was in a meeting with a couple of Telemarketers today (contact me if you need to ramp up your outbound telemarketing – Oliver) and they mentioned that they are big fans of the google CRM app called Insightly. I haven’t signed into it yet but will be doing over the next few weeks to see if it is better than what we use now. Anyway, I thought I would share the link:

http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?productListingId=3956+15797827514936543044

I would be interested to get feedback if anyone uses it or is thinking of using it.

thanks

Oliver

Free Apple Training with the Apple Store App

Oliver — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:49:28 +0000

How to find out about free training workshops at the Apple Stores

if you’ve got an iPhone or iPad and you want some free training from Apple on it, then install this app on your device and you can see when free workshops are available (at least three a day).

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/apple-store/id375380948?mt=8

iPad 3 is out (actually it is just called ‘The new iPad’)

Oliver — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:36:07 +0000

The new iPad is out at retail stores near you (and online). You’ve probably seen in the news some of the issues they are having with it – mis-selling in Australia, and the device running hot. That aside it is again and evolution rather than revolution (actually Apple are calling it Resolutionary!).

The new features are the Retina quality display (as in your eye can not see any pixels), a 5MP camera (which is still not up there with modern SLR’s), HD Video recording and 4G Wireless (but not in Australia!).

The device is pretty similar in shape and size, but it is slightly thicker and heavier (about 100g). The processor chip has also been upgraded and they have improved the iPhoto app.

Here is a snip of a photo from the apple website which shows the difference between the old display and the new retina display.

Hopefully you can see the difference. If not check out their website http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad/features/ or go see a optician! (sorry, couldnt resist that one)

iPad for Work – Note Taking

Chris — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:23:35 +0000

Continuing our series on iPad for work. 2 years ago, shortly after the original iPad was launched, I wrote an article about our initial thoughts on the suitability of the iPad as a business device. Our summary was that it isn’t a replacement for a laptop, but a different type of device which compliments what we already have.

Note taking

I’ll start by saying I am not a natural note-taker. I have had to learn to be disciplined about it. And so I’m always looking for ways to make this easier. Over the years I’ve tried a variety of electronic tools to do this but it has never worked for me. Generally because it is slower than just writing it down. So I return to a good old notebook and pen (I’m currently using an A5 moleskin).

What’s bad about paper and pen

I’m only going to stop doing what works, if there is something better. The reasons I don’t like a paper an pen is that it isn’t share-able or search-able. Before I can share the notes of a client review meeting with the client, and people in my team that need to follow up, I need to type them up. I keep old notebooks so I can refer back, but it is often time consuming. And if I am not in my office, I can’t do it.

iPad Note-taking Apps

There are a variety of ways to keep notes on an iPad, each with their own benefits, and weaknesses.

Inbuilt Notes app

Simple “notepad” type app, nothing to lean before getting started. Just start typing. I like simple. Once complete, I can email the notes to people who need to see them. And I can have notes synced to my iPhone using the new iCloud service from apple, which is free.

However I can’t easily keep in sync with my Windows 7 PC or Laptop

Microsoft OneNote

Being able to easily have all my notes at hand seemed really useful. I was frustrated I couldn’t do this with the iPad Notes app. Some google searching lead me to 2 alternatives. Microsoft have recently released OneNote for iOS devices (iPad and iPhone). OneNote is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and comes with most versions of Office 2010 for PC and Mac. It is a really powerful piece of software which works almost like a scrapbook – you can cut and paste anything in to it, annotate it and add text. Now it is available on iOS (it is also available on Android and Windows Phone) I can sync notes to all my devices. OneNote is free to get started.

However on the iPad and iPhone devices, I find it a bit a bit to complex. And this defeats my quick and simple rule.

Evernote

The second popular note taking app I found. Again, it is available on all devices, so syncing is no problem. It follows a freemium model – there is a free version which does plenty to get started with, and paid for version which gives you some more features. I have only used the free version so far.

So far this is my favourite. It scored well on simplicity, and so is easy to get started. However the key features that notes are searchable, and you can organise into folder are there. Notes can have bullet and numbers lists, and a nice feature to have check boxes for “to-do” actions. I can add photos and even voice clips.

If you get into using it, I have found this series of Youtube videos is useful for getting ideas on the many uses you can put Evernote to.

So that’s the app sorted …

But does it really improve over paper and pen? Currently I am running both systems. However I am finding I use the iPad most often. Then benefit is simple. I type the notes into Evernote, then at the end of the meeting, I can quickly email them out. Later, when I need to refer back to them, I can easily find the notes where ever I am.

I also use it for keeping notes aimed just for myself. We have just been developing this new Vermont website. So I tracked progress in Evernote. If I am researching for a new piece of software, I also use Evernote. I do most of this from my PC, but having these notes available anywhere is a big advantage. And being able to search for them quickly is great. I also note down ideas for blog posts, and generally end up writing them in Evernote too (so hello from Evernote!)

Summary

If I hadn’t got an iPad, I wouldn’t have got into Evernote. And I have found that Evernote in combination with my PC, Laptop, iPhone and iPad is a great way to organise my notes. So again, it’s not that the iPad sorts out the problem. Its more that it enhances the solutions available.

Tom Noyce, Noyce Insurance

Chris — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:37:43 +0000

Vermont take the time to find out where we are going as a business and help us understand how our IT system can cope with the changes to budget and plan for the future.

Mandy Wrenn, Firecare Solutions

Chris — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:36:55 +0000

Vermont listened to what we were trying to achieve and put together a solution tailored to our needs. I never felt that they had a solution to a problem and tried to make that fit us.