DEV Community: Miclain K Keffeler

Navigating the Digital Note-Taking Landscape: A Small Business Guide

Miclain K Keffeler — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 22:13:55 +0000

In the ever-evolving world of small business IT solutions, the choice of a digital note-taking application plays a crucial role. Let's evaluate secure and ready-made solutions in the space with a few key factors that I think are critical.

Factors to consider in your digital note taking solutions

Platform Agnosticism for Seamless Collaboration:
The first and foremost consideration is platform agnosticism. Opting for a digital note-taking application that works seamlessly across various devices (iOS, Android, and Web for Desktops) ensures a consistent user experience and simplifies collaboration within teams. Solutions limited to a single platform may offer unique features, but they often result in compatibility issues and headaches down the line, particularly in a business setting. Desktop integrations become essential, especially for teams utilizing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.
Integration with Existing Applications:
Small businesses often rely on specific software suites for their operations. It's crucial to consider how the chosen note-taking app integrates with existing applications. For Microsoft email users, OneNote emerges as a strong contender, with the added advantage of sometimes being available for free. However, for Google users, Google Keep may fall short, prompting the need for alternative applications. A thorough evaluation of software compatibility ensures a seamless workflow and maximizes the utility of the chosen note-taking tool.
Balancing Cost and Value:
Cost is a significant factor for small businesses, and it's essential to strike a balance between features and expenses. While some tools may excel in multiple areas, a higher cost might not always translate to increased value. It's necessary to rule out applications where the value does not justify the expense. Notably, there are cost-effective options with features that rival or surpass more expensive counterparts. Evernote, for instance, is a powerful tool but falls into the category of applications with no ongoing cost.
Handwritten vs. Typing:
Recognizing the diverse preferences within a team, it's beneficial to offer options for both handwritten and typed notes. Some individuals find the tactile nature of handwriting appealing, while others prefer the efficiency of typing. A well-rounded digital note-taking strategy accommodates both preferences, fostering a collaborative environment that caters to the unique needs of each team member.

Recommended Tools

Now, let's explore some recommended digital note-taking applications that align with the outlined considerations:

Handwritten Options, Cross-Platform, Generally Integrating with Most Tools, Cost-Effective:

Goodnotes: https://goodnotes.com (Features fancy options that work on Apple devices but aren't mandatory for operation.)
Microsoft OneNote: https://www.onenote.com/?public=1
Nebo: https://nebo.app (Not compatible with Mac, but ideal for iOS users.)

Typing Options, Cross-Platform, Generally Integrating with Most Tools, Cost-Effective:

Obsidian: https://obsidian.md
Zoho Notebook: https://www.zoho.com/notebook
Microsoft OneNote: https://www.onenote.com/?public=1

Your Options and Next Steps

Choosing the right digital note-taking application for your small business involves a careful balance of platform compatibility, integration capabilities, cost considerations, and accommodating varied user preferences. By adopting a thoughtful approach to these factors, small businesses can enhance collaboration, streamline workflows, and ensure the security of their digital note-taking endeavors. If you aren't sure that a note taking app is for you, or need to consider more factors in the decision, reach out to us or our partners who specialize in comprehensive IT solutions at West Tennessee Consulting.

Discounts on Software

If you liked these tools above and are considering buying, reach out to us or see if our shop is running any specials, we leverage 3rd party resellers to secure better deals for you to save on IT!

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Seamless Email Migration: Ditching HostGator for Gmail with Style

Miclain K Keffeler — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 02:19:00 +0000

In our fast-paced digital world, your email is your central hub for communication. Yet, sometimes, it feels like your trusty old email service just can't keep up. That's where this guide comes in a practical journey to help you smoothly transition from HostGator to Gmail.

This isn't about tech wizardry; it's a down-to-earth, step-by-step process tailored for anyone looking to make their email life easier. We're here to simplify the complex and ensure your email migration is straightforward and stress-free.

But why Gmail? Well, it's not just about change; it's about getting more from your email. Gmail offers a user-friendly interface, robust spam filters, and seamless integration with other useful tools. Similar platforms exist in Microsoft and others but for this article we are using Gmail as an example.

So, let's roll up our sleeves and get started. No technical jargon, just straightforward guidance to help you make the switch from HostGator to Gmail, all while enhancing your email experience. Welcome to a more realistic and simple way of managing your email.

Part 1 - Preparing Your Gmail Account

Firstly we need to make sure you have what you need ready to go where this will all ultimately reside, gmail. Something most people don't know, you can get more cost effective email licenses through a reseller partner like West Tennessee Consulting and save sometimes as much as 20% on each email account. Either way, getting your admin account setup so you can access the Gmail Admin Portal is critical.

Part 2 - DNS Changes

In order for your domain to work with Gmail we have to show we have ownership. We also will eventually have to move the Mail Exchange (MX) record, which is responsible for all delivery of mail to your accounts, to Gmail at some point.

Once you have access you will need to setup your domain which requires some DNS changes, this is relatively straightforward assuming you bought all of this in Hostgator, go to the Hostgator Portal and then find your domain, and click to manage the Cpanel.

Once in click on Zone Editor -> Manage

From here follow the gmail prompts to add a TXT record and confirm ownership of your domain.

Part 3 - Migrating Old Email to Gmail

Now for the hard part. If you stopped at Part 2 this would be fine for a net new account we wanted to start from scratch, you could follow the How to create a new user in Gmail and be on your way. But this is for users who were using Hostgator and have emails they want to have saved now in Gmail.

Get back to your Cpanel instance

Once in click on Email Accounts. For each email account you want to migrate you click on that user. Note that the system account is not something that is supported at this time.

Reset the password to the email account after clicking to Manage the Account.

Once this is done now we head to Google Admin

We need to create the user we want to migrate the email into inside of gmail at this point, follow the How to create a new user in Gmail to get this done.

Once in find the Data Migration tab

Click to begin setup.

We need to go back to Cpanel and observe the URL in our browser and copy this domain, in our case it was "cloud50.hostgator.com". Copy this back to gmail as the Imap Server.

Now finish setup and then click to start

CAUTION

This part got us screwed up, so you should take note.

The default setting is to only migrate the last 1 year of email. If you are like most people, you have way more than that! Not fixing this will cause all future accounts to only get email from the last year, and you will be sufficiently confused as we were!

Use a custom date and go back as far as you can, be sure to check the boxes for Deleted and other folders if you want that.

Now you select your users,

Enter the user from Hostgator, the password from earlier for that account in Hostgator, then map it to a user in Gmail.

Then click start!

It will track your progress for you and show you as you go, it will also tell you any errors but we migrated over 19,000 emails without a problem!

Once you are done just login to the email account in question and find all your old emails still in tact!

Part 4 - Cleanup and Security Best Practices

Be sure to cleanup your hostgator, they tell you how to easily cancel your account if you are getting completely out of it.

Additionally be sure to reset those passwords we used once more so they can't be re-used by anyone who finds them in Google or otherwise.

Finally, enable 2 Factor Authentication in your gmail if you haven't already!

Part 5 - Enjoy New Features!

There is much to enjoy (and hate) about any email solution. Hopefully if you chose to stick with us to this point you are feeling like Google is the right solution for you, and there is plenty to enjoy about it! Checkout our 60-Second run down of top features in Gmail or read about it here to learn some awesome tips and tricks!

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🙂‍↕️ Boost Your Small Business Productivity with Microsoft Lists: A Game-Changer You Can't Ignore

Miclain K Keffeler — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 22:09:58 +0000

In today's fast-paced business landscape, efficiency and organization are paramount for small enterprises aiming to thrive amidst competition. Fortunately, technology has provided an array of tools to simplify tasks and streamline operations. Among these, Microsoft Lists stands out as a versatile and powerful asset. Whether you're managing tasks, tracking inventory, or collaborating on projects, Microsoft Lists offers a comprehensive solution to enhance productivity for small businesses. In this article, we'll delve into the world of Microsoft Lists, uncovering its capabilities, and demonstrating how it can revolutionize your small business operations. Prepare to unlock a new level of efficiency and organization that could make all the difference in your journey to success. 📈

Microsoft Lists Overview

Microsoft Lists aims to address a few key use cases:

Create, Share, and track lists with anyone (Integration with MS Teams!)
List Customization and Sortation
Automation with Power Platform

These key features and in particular the integration with Teams makes life simpler for all users to track and organize work, let's dive right in.

Creating a List

Unfortunately you have to initialize Microsoft Lists on a desktop, this is as easy as browsing to the channel and then adding the app (Be sure you have a license for Teams and all that before this, if you pay list price or don't have licenses email West Tennessee Consulting at microsoftlicenses@westtn.consulting to get some and save $ as well.)

Give your list a name

then you can create it and start customizing!

View Lists in Teams

Simply go to the add a new tab in a channel, select Lists

Then create/choose an existing list!

You can then add to your list and start executing automations.

Automation

Microsoft documentation has an example of doing this, you can create automations based on use cases like:

An item is deleted
A new item is created
A column value changes
A column changes

All the basics are there as you would expect with more integrations already pre-built!

List Customization

Of course you need to be able to customize your lists! Adding new columns, sorting, filtering is all available at your fingerprints, but wait there is more!

Templates

Use a template to get a pre-built list with columns you would expect to need, super helpful for getting started fast!

Other applications

It would not be fair to say Microsoft Lists is alone in support for this functionality. If you are in the Microsoft Ecosystem and using other Microsoft apps the support for automating and integrating will be unparalleled to other applications. With that said, many tools like monday.com build upon similar workflows and can be more cost effective even. Even simpler can be tools like Zoho Todo or Zoho Projects

Both of the above apps integrate with Teams as well!

Mobile Friendly

The app is also mobile friendly, you can customize, add to, and edit lists all from your phone. This article focused on key features and use cases but there is a mobile demo we recorded here that you can checkout!

Summary

Microsoft Lists builds list and task organization natively into Teams and offer's integrations that other platforms may lack for those deep in the Microsoft Ecosystem. Consider trying it out or email us at microsoft@thesecuritymaven.com to get help integrating deeper!

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Mass Mail For Free with eM Client

Miclain K Keffeler — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 21:40:28 +0000

Cheaper and Easier than a CRM or Mailchimp: Sending Mass Email for Free with eM Client

Many times a selling point for a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool or email marketing tool like Mailchimp is it's ability to send mass emails. This often takes the form of being able to use variables like name, title, and more, to personalize a templated email. While the fields that you can use are limited to those supported by eM Client, we have some ways to get unique and make it work!

Sending Mass Mail for FREE with eM Client

1.Download the client

(Our friends at West Tennessee Consulting helped us vet this solution, we know this is safe!)

Windows+Mac

This works with almost any type of email account, for the demo we used a @gmail.com account.

2.Setup your account

We used a gmail account, it had us got our default browser and complete the login process, then started syncing our email!

3.Send a Mass Mail

Open up new mail, then click to send as mass mail.

4.Use a variable in your Mass Mail

In order to personalize the email you need to use variables, right click to insert, then insert a variable and select from available contact fields. This is how you write the email 1 time and can personalize it for the masses!

5.Select all the contacts to send to

Now you have a variable, fill out who you want to send it to and click send!

6.Bask in the Glory!

The emails come out like this!

Nice and easy.

Next Steps

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Alternative Desktop Email Clients

Miclain K Keffeler — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 21:31:50 +0000

Email Evolution: Unleashing the Power of Alternative Desktop Clients

Once upon a time a single company ruled them all, Microsoft. Okay, that time hasn't really left us, the fact of the matter is that as far as mainstream email goes, Microsoft Outlook is the defacto standard. They certainly are the only ones with any marketing of their solution also. With that said, there are other email clients. Yes, they work just as well. No, they are not viruses or fake. In this article we break down some key features and discuss how to (securely) obtain these email clients for use on all your devices.

Even better, we don't make recommendations for clients that only support Windows or Mac, read on with faith that we have solutions that work no matter what!

Lets review 2 top solutions and help rule out at least 1 client in depth below.

Recommended: eM Client

With wide support for all email types, and support for encryption, undo send, and more, we really like this one. Just like Outlook, you can organize your emails all together, view contacts, calendar, and even send mass mail with ease.

Checkout our short on sending mass mail for free with eM Client (or read it here)!

It feels like Outlook, but has a free version and costs less to upgrade and keep the latest version! With features like Mass Mail, templates, and more, it checks a lot of boxes for the power users out there.

For our privacy concerned individuals, you can disable email tracking which is nice. I know your next question, but does it integrate with Zoom or Teams for meetings? Yes!, Zoom and Teams linked!

They also support read receipts for sent messages.

Recommended: Thunderbird

Sometimes less is more, and Thunderbird should speak to minimalists everywhere! Thunderbird has long been about open source, they are in fact owned by Mozilla and offer similar features like a unified inbox, tagging, and email scheduling.

Indeed, the UI can feel a little dated for the younger folks out there, but whoever said the latest is the greatest hasn't had to restart their computer 5 times just to get something to work the right way, if I never have a problem with it and it works, I love it.

For what it's worth, there is a healthy add-on marketplace as well!

Not Recommended: Mailbird

We bought the hype off of their website, "many users trust us", "4.5 stars on 1,390 reviews". Yeah, not so much.

First off, when you download it it's easy. Get logged on, then it asks you to setup integrations. The list is great, seemingly integrating with Slack, ChatGPT, Grammarly and more. We chose Slack and ChatGPT.

ChatGPT works just fine, but Slack seems to have issues. At first I thought this was great to have it all combined, but it didn't really work.

Then on top of this, I really didn't get any online meeting integrations of note, not nearly as easy as other solutions out there.

With that said, it does have support for mail tracking which can be handy for sales teams.

Feature Table

A quick feature comparison for these 3 email clients with the list of features I focused on as differentiators!

Client	Mass/Templated Mail for Sales	Email Tracking	Online Meetings (Zoom, Teams, etc)	Ease of Use	Life Long License (1 time)
eM Client	Yes, very helpful!	Yes	Yes (Free)	Very	Yes
Thunderbird	No	No	Some, but not all.	Very	Yes
Mailbird	No	Yes	Separate Add-On (Must buy license)		Yes

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60 Seconds - Top Gmail Features

Miclain K Keffeler — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 21:29:43 +0000

🚀 Master Gmail's Hidden Gems in Just 60 Seconds! Boost Your Small Business Security and Efficiency! 💼📨

This article is a total of 378 words (Excluding my bonus tip!), otherwise known as the top end of total words per minute that can be read within 1 minute without losing comprehension! (Source: Mindtools.com).

We made a video for those who can't read that fast, but to those who enjoy reading lets give it a shot!

Top Features of Gmail in 60 Seconds of Reading (Assuming 450 words per minute is your reading speed!)

1. Undo Send 🕒🚫

Ever sent an oopsie email? No more regrets! Learn to set a 30-second email safety net to rescue those blunders.

2. Templated Emails 📝✉️

Templates are your email superheroes! Create and save templates for faster customer communication.

3. Send Encrypted Emails and More 🤐📬

Keep secrets safe with Confidential Mode. Encrypt sensitive emails with a passcode. Your messages are like Fort Knox!

4. Get Fast at Clearing Your Inbox ⚡📥🗑️

Hate those email notifications? Say goodbye! Use keyboard shortcuts for lightning-speed email management.

Some of the best options include marking as read, deleting, replying, and more.

Checkout all the shortcuts here.

Bonus Tip

If you aren't already, you can use Voice to Text on your Computer. Windows and Mac have support for this, it can certainly speed up your response times!

5 - Get Gmail in a Desktop Email Client

Sometimes nothing beats having everything as a local application, not in your browser. The leader in the space right now is certainly Microsoft Outlook, and you CAN get your gmail inside of it!

Sounds weird right? Aren't they supposed to be different?

Microsoft Outlook (The Desktop app) actually supports almost all email types, Gmail included. If you long for a desktop client but love Gmail, you can do this on all youu devices. Just use IMAP settings, or follow this guide.

Also checkout my article on alternative desktop email clients if you want one but despise Outlook or don't want to fork over the $ for Outlook!

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