In Windows, there are various options for configuring the speed, look, and behavior of your mouse pointer to exactly the way you want it.

To do so, click the Start button, and then click Control Panel. Click Hardware and Sound, and then under Devices and Printers, click Mouse. In the Mouse Properties box, click on the Pointers and Pointer Options tab, and adjust the options to change the shape and size of your cursor by changing the "scheme". In the "Pointer Options" tab, you can change the speed, visibility, and other characteristics of your pointer. You can add pointer trails, automatically snap the pointer to buttons and dialog boxes, and so on. These settings are especially handy when using small screens such as on laptops or netbooks.

A recent survey on the perception of cloud computing shows that almost half of small businesses are unconvinced of the benefits that cloud computing can offer. With better and easier IT management through the Internet as well as features like secure off-site data storage, cloud computing is at least worth a second look.

A recent survey by Newtek's SB Authority Market Sentiment shows that almost half of small businesses do not see how cloud computing can cut down on costs and help increase their productivity, with an additional 32 percent still unsure about the whole idea.

At the very least, what these results show is that there is a pressing need for a more widespread and comprehensive information campaign about cloud computing. While many companies see the cloud as a mere fad, there's much more to it than meets the eye, and what it offers can make a definite and concrete difference in the way a business conducts its operations.

What sets cloud computing apart from other hosting services is the way it's managed and used. Management is handled completely by the service provider, and subscribers can adjust the specific features they use and pay only for those, similar to how on demand IT services work. Cloud computing usually also includes virtual data storage, with most if not all data stored off-site and in the cloud service's servers.

Of course, the way the cloud impacts each particular organization will vary, and how it will affect your business in the short and long term depends on your needs and requirements – and whether you even need it in the first place. There are pros and cons to any cloud-based service, but at the very least it deserves some serious thought.

If you want to find out more about cloud computing and how it may affect your business, please give us a call and we'll be happy sit down with you and discuss any issues and concerns you have, and help you determine whether the cloud is right for you.

Email plays a big role in the way people do business. Whether you work from a fixed location at an office desk or from a mobile device on the go, the kind of email you use can define your level of productivity. Are you sure that the email system you are using is the right one for you?

Whether you work from an office or are productive while on the go, email most likely plays a big factor in the way you go about your business. Unbeknownst to many, some types of email systems have certain limitations that by extension can also limit the level of productivity of your business, and especially for people in the organization who must also work while out in the field.

One major issue for many people is synchronicity. Many people need their emails to be accessible on their mobile phones, PDAs, or other mobile devices, and they need them to be properly synchronized with their desktop workstations. The need to constantly update conversations and email threads from mobile devices to desktops with certain types of email can prove to be tedious and unproductive– and some email system types don’t include this ability at all.

Depending on the way you use your email, especially when on the go, having full access and full control of your account can define how productive you and others in your organization can be. Besides providing a much better degree of synchronization and integration with mobile devices, certain types of email systems also have features for sharing and collaboration features that allow you to set schedules and share files from your mailbox, as well as central storage for emails that allows you to access your account seamlessly with any mobile device, regardless of where you are located.

Of course, having a full-featured email system might not be best for everyone. The key is to know whether adapting a more bare-bones system is cost-effective for your business (especially in the long run). Sometimes the top of the line may be needed, and sometimes all you need is a bit of tweaking on your less fully featured system. Not sure which is best? Call us and we’ll be glad to sit down with you and assess what kind of email system is best suited for you and your business.

The clarity of text and images on your screen can depend largely on how you set your monitor's screen resolution. At high resolutions, such as 1280 by 1024 pixels, you can display more on the screen—but text and images will look smaller.

At lower resolutions, such as 800 by 600 pixels, objects will appear larger but may look jagged and less sharp. The optimal setting to choose really depends on your monitor and the larger the monitor the higher resolution it supports. Most newer computers have already been pre-configured for you, but you can try various options to see what works best for you. You can quickly change this setting by right-clicking any empty space on your desktop, then choosing "screen resolution" in the menu.

Do you sometimes forget the file attachments you meant to include in an email message? Thanks to a free plugin for Outlook, now you can be alerted when you do just that.

Head over to CodeTwo's website and download the free Outlook Attachment Reminder. Install and configure it to scan for text in your email's subject line and body text (such as "attachment" or "attached" or "see document"). When you press the send button, if the system finds that you included these phrases but did not attach a file, it will prompt you to do so before sending out the email.

For companies interested in trying out cloud-based services, email maybe something worth trying. Here’s a breakdown of two options from two industry giants that may be worth considering.

Google Apps
Google Apps is a service from Google that started in 2006, with the introduction of Gmail—a hosted email service, and which later incorporated other apps such as Google Calendar, Groups, Talk, Docs and Sites. Google Apps allow customers an independently customizable version of these Google products under their own domain name. The entry level option is free, but the package offered for Businesses is a paid service with an annual fee per user and additional storage space.

1. Storage. Gmail, Google Apps’ email service starts with a sizable 7GB of free storage. Business users get 25GB. Bear in mind however that this storage space is shared with any data you have in other Google properties such as Picasa Web Album and Google Docs. Extra space can be bought however starting with USD $5 per year for an extra 20GB of storage. E-mail attachment sizes are limited to 25MB.
2. Calendaring and Task Management. Gmail can be integrated with the overall excellent Google Calendar application. Google Calendar allows you to easily share personal calendars with colleagues, or create shared calendars used by groups of people (such as a calendar to track meeting room reservations, marketing events and others). Google Calendar also offers a built-in, but somewhat underpowered task management tool. Tasks can readily be added with due dates, but not readily shared or cannot be nested or linked with other tasks.
3. Spam filtering, security and reliability. Gmail’s spam filtering features a community-driven system. Email tagged as spam by users help identifies similar messages as Spam for all other Gmail users. Generally the system works well, although some have complained that it can get over aggressive in its filters. In terms of security and reliability—Gmail has been criticized in the past with showing ads in its free Gmail service that display based on key words in the user’s messages—potentially violating their privacy. Its paid service offers however the option of disable these ads. Reliability is generally good with very few, but widely publicized disruptions in service.
4. Usability. Gmail offers a host of unique usability enhancements that make it different from most other mail services. For one for a web app it loads really fast, as Google has been known to studiously optimize web page loading performance for their products. Another is that it offers a threaded view of messages by default. It also uses a starring/labeling system to tag and segregate messages instead of using folders. Another interesting enhancement done recently is the ability to sort messages by “importance” where it learns based on your usage over time what email messages it thinks you think are important.
5. Mobile access. Gmail offers a version optimized for mobile devices, as well as support for a variety of devices for their native mail applications such as iOS and Android.

Overall Gmail is a solid mature choice if you are thinking of moving email to the cloud and are not afraid of being on the bleeding edge of cloud services and technology.

Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft Office 365, like Google Apps, offers a host of applications such as online versions of productivity tools which we all already know and use such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Most however work best when they are used in conjunction with your desktop-installed Office applications. Focusing on email, Office 365 offers a Hosted Exchange service, which transforms the mature, business-proven on-premise application to an on-demand service. Compared to Google Apps, it is quite new—being introduced only last June this year, although its suite of products in an alternate form has been around for much earlier.

1. Storage. Microsoft’s Hosted Exchange email service gives users 25GB of storage. Attachment file sizes are limited to 35MB. Additional storage can be purchased for $2.5 per GB per user per month.
2. Calendaring and Task Management. Exchange integrates a mature feature set for personal productivity including calendaring, resource management, and task management. As an example tasks can be grouped, color coded and easily sorted. Emails can be converted as tasks and so on.
3. Spam filtering, security and reliability. This is an area where perhaps Microsoft easily outshines Google with Exchange’s roots as an enterprise-class application. It offers spam protection, antivirus and others via Microsoft’s Forefore Online Protection for Exchange technology. It offers other features such as more full features user management, identity access management, mail archiving, etc. If you are in a highly regulated industry like financial services or healthcare these features may be essential for your business.
4. Usability. While the web apps of Office 365 is not as fast loading or as slick as Google, it does offer familiarity. Modeled after their desktop brethren, or directly integrating with them—they offer a smoother migration experience for users specially if they have been weaned on Outlook.
5. Mobile access. Like Gmail Microsoft made sure to support a variety of devices on launch, as well as integration with a variety of devices—specially enterprise stalwarts like Blackberry mobile phones.

Overall Office 365 is a solid choice if you are thinking of moving email to the cloud but may be hesitant with changing the apps your users already know and use. Also if you are a business with strict policies related to security and compliance—this service may be something your auditors and IT people may be more comfortable with.

Interested in learning more? Can’t decide which to try? Let us know and find out how we can help get you the right balance between your existing IT systems and infrastructure and the cloud.

In Outlook, you can color code messages addressed only to you, to easily identify messages that may be more important or require action from you.

Go to the Tools menu and choose Organize. In the "Using Colors" section, select the "Turn on" button next to "Show messages sent only to me in Blue." You can also choose to define a different color if you want.