DEV Community: Hugh Olssen

Benefits of Microsoft Flow

Hugh Olssen — Fri, 28 May 2021 10:30:01 +0000

Microsoft Flow is a cloud-based system with which you can create automated workflows, simplify business processes, and manage them more efficiently.

Microsoft Flow divides its flows into three main types:

Automatic Flow - a type of Flow that is activated when a pre-selected event occurs. For example, when a file is updated, other employees will be notified.
Scheduled Flow - a flow that occurs at a specific time, such as receiving a warning to report each day of an upcoming event.
Button Flow-Flow activated at the push of a button.

Microsoft Flow is a tool that anyone can use and integrate into their Microsoft Office 365 suite. In addition to being a business process management platform that automates repetitive tasks and simplifies their execution on behalf of employees, it also provides additional benefits.

You can easily integrate it with other applications (connectors). The activation-based tool allows you to integrate workflows directly into the various applications you use using connectors.

A connector is a tool that connects two or more external applications. Therefore, Connector lets you connect your MailChimp to Slack, SharePoint, or other applications. This way, you can automate the processes between them and simplify your daily starting tasks.

This workaround method is suitable even for people who do not have the technology and only need a Microsoft account to access the application. Also, let me note that some connectors are only available to premium users.

You can use Microsoft Flow to link your applications together and create a flow between them. For example, you can use Flow to copy data from one application to another automatically. This way, your colleagues can easily share and access data through various web applications.

A practical example is linking Sharepoint to your Outlook. Whenever a colleague sends you a file in your email, the software automatically triggers the Flow and shares the same file on your SharePoint.

After reading all this, you are probably convinced that workflow automation tools are a must nowadays: Because big data and an abundance of responsibilities outweigh things, we need something that will make our lives easier and simplify our daily business tasks that we are going through.

You are now wondering what if a disaster occurs and no proper backup is available within your Microsoft 365. In fact, Microsoft is not providing backup, well, not the backup most of us would want. Either way, Office 365 may be one of your main issues in backing up the crucial data. Office 365 backup is still an enigma for Microsoft 365 users.

In this regard, I will share with you the best Office 365 backup on the market, as I am willing to help businesses worldwide to proceed with their successful operations for their specific needs.

While I was searching for Office 365 backup several years ago and got Veeam as my backup partner, I really wasn't satisfied with Veeam. In this case, I tried Altaro Office 365 backup, and now I am enjoying all the benefits!

Top 3 Entertaining and Inspirational Instagram Influencers you Must Follow in 2021

Hugh Olssen — Wed, 26 May 2021 14:13:48 +0000

Let's all admit, those simple motivation words always work, a simple quote or a 5 minute video of a podcast, a picture, or a story of someone else’s success can get us fired up.

So who are the best accounts to follow on social media like Instagram?

Here’s my list of top 3 influential and fun personalities to follow on Instagram, they honestly try to touch people, and show them how life can be better, not just financially but also inner peace, getting to know yourself, just simply finding the right balance in life. Enjoy.

1.Andy Frisella

With a cool and fun personality, Andy preaches about hard work, but most importantly he shows the results of that hard work.

He is a car enthusiast and you can frequently see his Lamborghini or Mustang in the news feed as a result of his 80+ hours work week.

Now if that does not inspire you to start your own business, I don't know what will.
Andy has an audience of more than 1.8 million followers, and he also shares his wisdom on his podcast.

2. Erik Bergman

Erik Bergman is an entrepreneur who made a fortune at a young age. He earned more than $50 million before the age of 30 with his media company.

He now owns great.com, an online casino affiliate program that donates the profits to charity.

Eric's Instagram account is followed by more than 450 000 people, which is totally deserved. Erica has a fun and loving personality with original and exciting content where he tries to help his audience live a better life.

His account name is smilingerik, and it's deserved because he is always positive and smiling and his energy is contagious.

3.Binais Begovic

Another cool guy on Instagram is Binais Begovic.
If seeing someone live the life you want to live inspires you, then Binais is the right person to follow.

He shows how amazing life can be if you work hard.

He is the owner of Ironman magazine and constantly shares its success.

You can find him in a luxury car, gym, or over a book.
He creates interesting content for his 100 000 followers and might just be the right person to inspire you.

Feel free to Share a thought or comment on some of your favorite motivational personalities on Instagram

Best UX design for your affiliate top lists

Hugh Olssen — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:58:28 +0000

A top list is, essentially, a collection of external website hyperlinks that are ranked according to some order or principle. The websites included on a top list may be ranked in various ways and for many different reasons, but most often are ranked in order of popularity. External website owners will seek inclusion on the top list to drive visitors to their website.

Why do you need an affiliate top list?

Toplists are a great way of collecting and ranking websites that deal with a similar topic in one place, in a way that is easy for end-users to find them. Toplists also have the benefit of being listed in a ranked format, which is useful from a user engagement perspective as it tends to drive click-throughs. Generally speaking, the higher a website is ranked, the more likely it is to gain visitors. This is because users tend to pay attention to higher-ranked websites first, before visiting lower-ranked sites.

Another great feature of top lists is how flexible they are. As a website designer, you have complete control over what principle you utilize to order your top list. This means you can easily tailor a top list to the specific needs of your website. From a design perspective, this is incredibly useful and makes top lists a very flexible resource in the designer’s toolkit.

Principles of UX design

Given how flexible top lists are, this makes them a designer's dream from a UX perspective! However, just because they are flexible doesn’t mean you have free rein as a designer to format and shape them in whatever style you think best. As always with UX design, while there aren’t necessarily any hard and fast rules you always need to strictly abide by, there are nevertheless some general principles you should keep in mind:

User focus: With UX design, the experience of the end-user when using the website is the most important factor to keep in mind. Try and put yourself in their shoes when designing a top list: what value will it add to their browsing experience? If it won’t add any value, maybe it’s time to rethink your design strategy!
Consistency: Another important principle to keep in mind is consistency. Make sure the top list design fits in with the overall look and feel of the website. Ensure the aesthetic, design and interface are consistent with the host site.
Accessibility: Given that you want your top list to be usable by as many people as possible, make sure it is also accessible to as many individuals as possible! This could include making sure that the website is accessible to people with limited eyesight, older users who may be less experienced with the internet, or even users who might be color-blind. Ultimately, focusing on accessibility will ensure you maximize your chances of user engagement.

Online casino affiliates are known for good CRO

When you are crafting online content, the goal is to achieve a solid CRO score. CRO – also known as Conversion Rate Optimization – refers to the process of optimizing a host website with a view towards increasing the likelihood that users will click through to the target website. The hope is that if you increase the probability that users will click through to a specific website, once they are there, their visit will be converted into the desired engagement. This might be in the form of an account sign-up or a product sale of some kind.

When looking to optimize your CRO, you should pay attention to both quantitative metrics, qualitative metrics, and to the design of the website itself. Design is a particularly important aspect, as to how information is presented will have a significant impact on the likelihood that a visit by a user will be converted. This is especially true of top lists, where the design of the top list and the surrounding website will have an impact on how the legitimacy of the target website is perceived.

In terms of which websites tend to have a solid CRO rate, https://www.casinospesialisten.net/ is known to score particularly well. There are a number of reasons for this, although it is primarily because would-be casino users tend to use affiliate websites to find information about casino platforms and for advice on which to sign up at.
The online casino space is particularly crowded these days, and affiliate websites present a good way to provide users with information about what online casino to register with. Affiliate top lists are therefore a great way to help users navigate this space.

Top 5 Influencers That Are Environmental Activists

Hugh Olssen — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 09:10:29 +0000

Preserving our environment and fighting climate change have become more important now than ever. We live in a world where industrialization has caused a massive cut-down of forests. This has impacted our planet in ways that we could only imagine. Also, did we mention the huge plastic contamination of our oceans and the depleting energy reserves? Yes, those as well!

Although we have already done enough damage to our environment, there is still time to come to our senses and help save our planet. Small but consistent efforts in our day-to-day lives can help us in this fight.
As someone concerned about climate change and the drastic consequences that come with it, we don't need to protest and start on-road movements to bring the change.

The question is where to start?

Several environmental influencers have pledged to make the world a better place for everyone. The strategies they follow and the advice they offer have helped them garner huge attention worldwide. These activists are working hard to encourage people about the alarming climate changes and how it is impacting our planet. It is because of their right motives and genuine concerns that they are now viewed as environmental influencers.

We as a concerned audience can follow these influencers and the measures they are taking to fight this battle. Although various such environmentalists are contributing to society, here is our list of the top 5 such environmental activists who are doing their bit for the planet. Ready to feel inspired? Follow these influencers to keep getting your daily dose of inspiration!

1. Immy Lucas

She posts healthy vegan meals, tours of her minimal closet, inspiring books to read, and other ways to help the environment. Lucas is the founder of the blog, Low Impact Movement, and a climate activist. Lucas is the founder of what sheLow Impact, which strives for a "low environmental impact through a high social impact."

The organization has a website and blog where you can find DIYs such as green tea facial toner, natural deodorant, shampoo, and Immy's favorite 'on-the-go' items.

2. Heather White

If you want to get your family more involved in eco-friendly practices, White and her family will provide insight and inspiration.
They source their food from their garden and White posts images on how you can grow your own vegetables and why fresh produce is so important. Learn how to cook with herbs like rosemary and oregano, peppermint, and thyme. " She and her family of four, live a sustainable lifestyle at their "suburban" home in NW, Wa.

One favorite moment is her walk with her kids to pick up litter along the road. Heather White shares the everyday details of their environmental practices such as gardening and avoiding plastic and paper in favor of glass and composting. Heather White says she "strives to live intentionally by reducing waste and working toward minimalism.

3. Erik Bergman

Erik Bergman is a very successful person in the marketing world, with his marketing agency Catena Media as a co-founder made more than $50 million before celebrating his 30th birthday.

Besides his enormous success with his marketing agency, in 2017 Erik Bergman decided to leave the agency and start great.com. It is an Online Casino Affiliate company that gives away 100% of its profit to the constant fight against climate change. What a gesture!

He is also constantly active on his Instagram page , with a wide audience of more than 460 000 followers which he constantly entertains and coaches.

4. Vic Barett

Vic Barrett is a climate activist who is one of the youth plaintiffs suing the US government in the Juliana V United States climate lawsuit.

Hailing from an Afro-Indigenous community in the Caribbean, Vic was 11 when Hurricane Sandy devastated battered his hometown of White Plains, New York.

5. Tim Silverwood

Environmentalist Tim is a zero waste and plastic campaigner. 2014 Green Globe ‘Sustainability Champion’, he starred as an ‘Ocean Guardian’ in the 2017 feature documentary, Blue.

The founder of 'ReChusable', which aims to reduce plastic pollution, and 'Take 3', a non-profit organization devoted to raising awareness of marine debris.

Any other I might have forgotten? Feel free to remind me in the comments!

The Top 3 Office 365 Backup And Recovery Solutions

Hugh Olssen — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 19:13:03 +0000

Having a comprehensive and customizable Office 365 backup and recovery solution is increasingly important for Office 365 clients.

Backup and recovery solutions capture a copy of a file, database, or even an entire computer at a given time and save the data to the secondary storage device so that users can return them in the future. Microsoft does not provide a natural backup for Microsoft Office 365.

Standard settings only protect data for 30-90 days on average, leading to many complications when organizations believe their systems are backed up and later discover that they are missing.

Luckily, I am about to share with you the top 3 backup solutions for Office 365, starting with Altaro:

1.Altaro Office 365 Backup

Altaro Software is a market-leading vendor for backup and recovery solutions for SMBs and MSPs. Altaro Office 365 Backup is their MS O365 replication and restoration software solution, which focuses on backing up your Office 365 mailboxes and files stored in OneDrive and SharePoint.

Office 365 Backup is cloud-based, making it easy to deploy and configure. The solution is also easy to manage via a central cloud management console, from which administrators can configure complete and granular data recovery.

2.Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365

Veeam is one of the best global markets in backup and recovery solutions, holding the largest EMEA market share (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa).

Veeam offers a range of solutions to suit business needs, with their Backup & Replication solution being one of the most popular leading products.

3.Commvault Backup & Recovery

Commvault is a market leader in data and information management, offering intelligent, scalable solutions. Their powerful, practical products have resulted in Commvault being recognized as a leader for eight consecutive years in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Backup and Recovery Solutions.

Wrap Up

I know it’s a tough choice, and all of the companies we mentioned offer some great products. But ultimately the decision is yours, so share a thought about which one of our top 3 Office 365 backup and recovery solutions do you think is the best.

Listen and Learn: The 10 Best Educational Podcasts in 2021

Hugh Olssen — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 17:48:08 +0000

Technology has made it possible for anyone to access high-quality resources at any time. While there is plenty of content in the form of videos, blog posts, online courses, etc. available for a particular topic or niche, nothing can match the ease of expanding our knowledge using podcasts.

What are podcasts you ask?

For those who are unaware of the concept of podcasts, these are audio shows that can range from a few minutes to even several hours. While this concept isn't new and podcasts are in existence for a decade now, their popularity has garnered quite attention in the last few years. People have started realizing the importance and advantages of listening to podcasts. One of which is the ease of listening from anywhere and while doing anything.

Yes. You don't need to sit back till the end of a video or strain your eyes reading a 2000+ words blog posts. All this knowledge that you will receive from reading an extremely long blog post or watching hours of videos, can be given to you by podcasts. Doesn't matter if you are sitting on your bed wondering about something, or while you're driving around, or maybe while working, podcasts don't need any special time of your schedule. Just plug in the headphones and keep the knowledge coming.

If you like the feeling of I-know-it-all after watching an educational episode, these podcasts will help you retain the feeling for long. Since there are so many options, we have reduced your burden of rummaging the internet to find good podcasts. This handpicked list of top 10 educational podcasts will take you to a world of untapped knowledge. So, what are you waiting for?

1.The Big One

It’s hard to understand inevitable devastation in the abstract. To confront the possibilities would only spur existential dread.

Helpfully, the podcast also offers tips to California residents about how best to make it through the crisis. We know California is due for a massive earthquake that could hit any second, but we don’t like to think about the details — the buildings that will collapse, the people who will be trapped, the lives that will be lost. But that’s exactly what the Big One aims to do, putting you in the shoes of someone in downtown Los Angeles experiencing the earthquake as it happens.

The podcast isn’t entirely fiction: Host and KPCC science reporter Jacob Margolis interviews earthquake survivors, scientists, and even LA’s mayor about the inevitable disaster and its consequences.

2.Longform

Anyone remotely interested in the writing process should tune into this podcast. But even if you’re not interested in writing, the emotional journeys will resonate with you: It turns out just about every person with a recognizable byline has experienced imposter syndrome.

Hosts Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, and Evan Ratliff invite journalists like New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman to talk about their work, their process, and, most crucially, their journey to their current position. Writers, editors, and anyone who enjoys movies like Spotlight will geek out over the discussions of the process — like the small aside an interviewee make that breaks a story.

3.No Feeling Is Final

Her humor and musical stylings add lightness to a heavy subject and endear her to listeners so that when she tackles more heady topics — like why she struggles with suicidal thoughts while her identical twin sister does not — we’re already hooked.

Australian podcaster Honor Eastly has pulled off something rare, creating a visceral podcast about mental health. She takes listeners inside her own head and narrates her panic, anxiety, and fear as she navigates getting insurance to cover her therapy sessions or her view of a balloon on the floor of a hospital during a debilitating bout of depression.

4.Scattered

Inspired by a standup set he performed on 2 Dope Queens, Chris Garcia spins his quest to fulfill his father’s dying wish—to have his ashes scattered off the coast of Cuba—into a podcast about his parents’ experience as immigrants. Garcia’s father experienced traumas that he carried with him for the rest of his life after leaving Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

Garcia’s story, and others like it, are a crucial reminder of the bravery and tenacity of families seeking out their own American dream.

Garcia lightens the heavy tale with jokes about starting out in America and inspirational tales of his father’s love of space.

5.Becoming Great

Hosted by Erik Bergman and Emil Ekvardt. Erik is a successful businessman who was a co-owner of Catena Media and earned more than $50 million before the age of 30.

After leaving Catena Media, he started great.com, an Affiliate Online Casino that donates all of its profits to fighting climate change.

Emil is a professional poker player that made more than $1 million before he turned 25. He joined great.com in 2018 as its first employee and is now the co-host.

Their podcast is called Becoming great, where they share their knowledge on how to focus better, how to stop procrastinating, and improve your way of life overall.

6.Spectacular Failures

Perhaps the most disturbing undercurrent is the fact that so many of the founders and CEOs behind these companies — including Donald Trump, who has an episode dedicated to his Atlantic City casino fiasco — snatch up golden parachutes or simply declare bankruptcy and start over again, while workers are left without jobs.

Podcasts that promise to improve your business, help you “boss up” and otherwise conquer the world are a burgeoning if occasionally suspect, subgenre. “Failing up,” it seems, has become an essential business strategy.

Spectacular Failures is here to remind listeners that success isn’t so easy. Some of the most promising ideas have been brought down by hubris, family infighting, and scandal, while others have been felled by bad decision-making. The podcast explores some of the most public and ridiculous business implosions in history, from brawls in the U-Haul boardroom to MoviePass’s rapid rise and fall.

7.Switched on Pop

Some of their best episodes also delve into what influenced a particular artist, and whether borrowed beats are meant as tribute or appropriation, from Ariana Grande’s influences to Drake’s place in the culture.

If you’ve ever wondered what makes an earworm so addictive, hosts Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding have answers for you. The musicologist and the songwriter analyze how a song is made, what makes it work and why you can’t get the darn thing out of your head.

8.Everything is Alive

Ever wanted to hear how a bar of soap feels? What about an elevator? Think of this as that part of Fight Club concerning Jack’s organs, except you’re not part of Project Mayhem or burning yours and other people’s hands with lye. An “unscripted interview show,” Everything is Alive is an interesting take on exploring the world.

How so? In each episode, an interviewee is an inanimate object telling its life story. As far as storytelling podcasts go, it certainly isn’t This American Life, but it is worth a listen.

9.Timesuck

What helps Cummins stand out from other informational comedy podcasts is his willingness to investigate his own thoughts and beliefs and — through dialogues with people around the world — change his mind if he finds information the prove specific points. Hosted by comedian Dan Cummins, Timesuck is an investigation into just about everything in life.

Weekly topics range from true crime to the paranormal to history podcasts and beyond, and are all hallmarked by Cummins’ signature wit.

10.Stuff you Should Know

Stuff You Should Know, or SYSK is a podcast and video series published by Stuff Media and hosted by Josh Clark and Charles W.

If you want to learn more about how the Electoral College works, the disturbing disappearance of Tara Calico, or phrase origins, this is the podcast for you. “Chuck” Bryant, both writers at HowStuffWorks.